


Forthcoming

by Azzandra



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, F/M, Fluff, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, Smut, The Fade, UST, kink meme fill, maybe not fluff exactly but not a lot of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-24
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-08 22:05:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3225134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azzandra/pseuds/Azzandra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for a kink meme prompt. Some time after his disappearance, Solas slinks back into the Inquisitor's life. The Inquisitor is inconveniently sympathetic about the entire situation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt was [this](http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/12449.html?thread=48839841#t48839841) one: _"Inquisitor/Solas - Comfort and Forgiveness_
> 
>  
> 
> _The conversation about what to do if you try to change the world and fail. You know the one. I can't get it out of my head._
> 
>  
> 
> _I'd like to see Solas slink back to the Inquisitor in secret, slightly broken and feeling defeated. Because he's released the gods of old, and they're even worse than before. Maybe confinement has withered them, stolen most of their power, and twisted their purpose. They don't care about the People. The just want to be left alone. It was all for nothing. Or maybe they're powerful and vengeful and he's brought yet another impending apocalypse down upon the world. Or maybe he's realized nothing will work and his world is truly dust._
> 
>  
> 
> _I just want to see him tell the Inquisitor the truth, expecting punishment and recrimination, and receiving forgiveness, compassion, and understanding. And maybe sex. Because reasons._
> 
>  
> 
> _\+ for F!Trevs with whom Solas had boatloads of UST, because that's my jam, but I'm fine with pretty much any inquisitor._  
>  ++ if the result is that they go hand-in-hand to kick ass, take names, and keep trying to make the world better."
> 
>  
> 
> I was kind of hesitant to post this, since it's basically something I'm writing as stress relief during finals, but what the heck. I have no shame anymore. At least some people might get a kick out of it.

After the fact, Evelyn would recall that day being filled with a burgeoning sense of foreboding on her part, a feeling of clear skies soon to be overtaken by clouds; a rising sense of  _dread_ , if she were to be a bit on the nose about it.  
  
Perhaps she was remembering it wrong, but even so, she absolutely did not expect, as she climbed the stairs and entered her quarters that evening, to find Solas there.  
  
She stalled at the top of the stairs. He sat on the sofa, hunched over, with his elbows braced against his knees, and his chin resting against the back of his hands. He didn't look at her, only continued to stare at the floor, motionless, the very picture of misery in a way she had never seen of him before.  
  
“Inquisitor,” he said finally, still not looking at her. There was an undercurrent to the word that Evelyn could not really identify.  
  
“Solas,” she said, cautiously. “I'm sorry to tell you, but you missed the afterparty by a few months.”  
  
He turned his head to look at her. He seemed tired, defeated. And even so, Evelyn couldn't guess if this was why he showed up again now.  
  
“Or did you only come back to finish your mural?” she continued, attempting a smile as she sat down next to him. “That blank space  _has_  been taunting Dorian every time he looks down from the library.”  
  
Solas smiled, bitterly and without any humor. She didn't think it was at her weak jokes.  
  
“You left a bit abruptly, is what I'm trying to say,” she stated, so flatly that her tone actually drew out a brief snort of laughter from him.  
  
He was apparently just as surprised by this as Evelyn, because he immediately cut himself off and scrubbed a hand over his face, frustrated.  
  
“I... owe you so many apologies, Inquisitor,” he said.  
  
His voice wavered, like it had done just before he left— _It was not supposed to happen this way_ , his very last words before leaving—but worse, somehow. There was a regret there that didn't seem proportionate to his actions. It wasn't about leaving. It was, possibly, about his final cryptic remark, or maybe about lies he told, undoubtedly more numerous than she even suspected.  
  
Or something else that he'd never tell her. She learned quickly about him that the way he guarded his privacy, neither push nor pull would work to make him reveal anything. So she did neither, and if he ever let anything slip, it was only in brief snatches when his guard was down.  
  
“Solas,” she said, hesitating for a moment before continuing, “what's done is done. Welcome back, for however long you intend to stay this time.”  
  
She bumped her shoulder against his, the gesture feeling awkward. She didn't usually shy away from physical affection with friends—a gentle squeeze of Varric's shoulder for reassurance, linking arms with Dorian as they swanned off some place, the occasional tickle attack on Sera when they were horsing around, though the last one usually ended in shrieking laughter and playful slapfights—but not with Solas, not usually. The occasions on which they actually touched were... notable exceptions.   
  
He gave a hollow laugh in response.  
  
“You wouldn't be saying that if you knew the truth of what I've done,” he said.  
  
Well, that was ominous. Unsurprising except insofar as he was admitting it.  
  
“What do you think I would be saying, then?” she asked.  
  
Solas's expression twisted to frustration.  
  
“Cursing my name?” he suggested, terse. “Casting me out? Slaying me with your own hand, perhaps. There would be justice in that.”  
  
Evelyn recoiled.  
  
“I can't imagine what you could have possibly done,” she said. She  _couldn't_. Not Solas. He had too many regrets looming over him in the distant past to have done anything too foolhardy recently, unless she'd misjudged him completely.  
  
“Why don't you ask, Inquisitor?” Solas said, revealing the source of his frustration.  
  
Oh, why didn't she  _ask_ , he wanted to know. As if asking had ever gotten her anywhere? And now he wanted to be badgered for information, so he could have his need for punishment satisfied?  
  
“Why don't you  _tell_  me, Solas?” she returned evenly.

His eyes blazed, a flash of anger—at her? at himself?—and then he slipped off the sofa, knelt on the ground, looked up at her with an expression more broken than anyone ever brought before her for judgment. It was disorienting, every bit of it.  
  
“I gave the orb to Corypheus,” he said, and waited for her response.  
  
She had none. Her mouth opened, then closed again.   
  
He gave the orb to Corypheus.  _He_  gave the orb to Corypheus? _Him_?  
  
“Why?” She barely whispered the word.  
  
“I was too weak to unlock it,” Solas replied, his lip curling in self-loathing. “And too much a fool to let things lie.”  
  
“Let what lie?” she asked. “Why did you even have-- what did you need it for?”  
  
Now her shock was giving way to too many questions. She leaned forward over him and grabbed him by the shoulders roughly.  
  
“What happened?” she demanded.  
  
He tilted his head back, baring his throat to her as if he expected her to tear it out. He was calm, looking at her coolly from under his lashes.   
  
“A great deal of things happened, Inquisitor,” Solas said, “and all of them my fault.”  
  
His confession made, Evelyn realized with a chill that he  _would_  let her tear his throat out, if she were inclined to do it.   
  
Her breathing was labored, and her heart hammered in her chest. The sun was nearly set, and the room was dim. Neither hearth nor candles had been lit, but the encroaching darkness felt more appropriate at the moment.  
  
“No,” she said low, her fingers gripping Solas even tighter.  
  
He remained quiet, waiting.

This was not a time for dramatics, this was a time for knocking sense into an obstinate friend. And Evelyn knew in her bones they didn't often come more obstinate than Solas.  
  
“Get up,” she hissed, and physically pulled him before he could even get his feet under him.  
  
He was heavy, but offered no resistance. She shoved him back onto the sofa, sending him sprawling and surprised.  
  
She went around the room next, lighting candles and the hearth with annoyed flicks of spellwork, and when she was done, she rounded back on Solas again. He was still frozen in the same position, with his back against the sofa's armrest. His eyes followed her as he waited.  
  
“First off,” she said, coming to a halt in front of him, “you're going to stop being an overdramatic ass.”   
  
Solas looked briefly indignant, some of his old poise returning.

“Inquisitor--” he started.  
  
“No!” she interrupted, throwing her hands up. “I'm not doing this again! Blackwall was enough, I didn't expect him to be just a warming up act to yet more earth shattering confessions. We are not making this into an Inquisition tradition.”  
  
The comparison to Blackwall seemed to have a sobering effect on Solas, who snapped out of his strange mood to glower at her.  
  
Then he rose to his feet, with the fluidity of a stalking predator. Evelyn hadn't seen that particular set to his shoulders since his spirit friend had been captured by mages. He didn't come closer, though, he merely stood, and though they were almost the same height, he seemed to loom over her.  
  
“Am I allowed to speak now, Inquisitor?” he asked, almost mocking.  
  
Well, this was certainly a change. But if he wanted to intimidate her, he should have been someone she  _hadn't_  trusted at her back for months.  
  
“Sure,” she said, keeping her tone light. “So, how have you been lately? Not so good, huh? Want to talk about it?” Her voice cracked on the last word, but Evelyn crossed her arms and pretended it hadn't.  
  
“We should,” he said.  
  
Then something in Solas's expression softened, and his posture relaxed again. Back to looking regretful, if not defeated.  
  
She hadn't meant to reveal this—and partially, she hadn't even thought about it until that very moment—but now that he was back, Evelyn realized how much she'd missed him. It was more than just the fact that his disappearance had been a mystery and a kind of betrayal, but that Skyhold had seemed bereft of something in his absence. Incomplete, like an almost-finished mural.  
  
He raised a hand as if to reach for her, but then drew it back, uncertain. Evelyn was far less indecisive. There was only an arm's length distance between them, and she closed it in a single step. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him.  
  
She felt him shift uncertainly for a second, before he—slowly—placed his own hands against her back, patting it awkwardly.  
  
“You should have just said goodbye, you bastard,” Evelyn muttered without any rancor. “I can understand having to leave, but I can't-- There wasn't any need for doing it the way you did.”  
  
“I stand admonished,” Solas replied mildly. His arms tightened around her.  
  
Evelyn closed her eyes for a moment, and sighed against his neck. This was more physical contact than they'd had throughout their entire acquaintance, and it felt like more than she ever expected. She'd always kept a certain distance from him, partly held back by a nagging impression that Solas would slip away if she got closer, like a mirage in the Western Approach.   
  
But he'd done his disappearing act already, and now that she held onto him, she was surprised by how real he felt. Whatever that elusive quality was, it didn't prevent him from being as solid and warm as any other person. Perhaps more so, now that she was discovering how unexpectedly well-built he was for an elf.  
  
The initial wave of emotion passed, Evelyn was starting to feel awkward for every moment the hug continued.  
  
She released him and leaned back, but it was Solas who did not let go of her. With a hand against the small of her back, he held her in place, a slight crease between his brows as he searched her face for... something.  
  
The scrutiny made Evelyn drop her eyes, down to the wolf-jaw amulet hanging between them. Feeling awkward, and for lack of anything else to do, she traced a finger along its edge.

“I thought,” he began, and she looked back up at him, “I thought it would make things easier if I simply left.”  
  
“Easier for who?” Evelyn asked, genuinely astounded.  
  
“Everybody?” He shrugged.  
  
Evelyn sighed loudly through the nose, and shook her head. No, not for anyone. Not even for him, she suspected.   
  
He watched her for a long few seconds, her exasperation apparently amusing him. Then he seemed to remember himself, and let her go, withdrawing his hands. Evelyn took half a step back and tugged at the hem of her tunic to cover a twinge of embarrassment. Solas cleared his throat and clasped his hands behind his back, possibly for the same reason.  
  
“You know, whatever you needed to do when you left, we would have helped you with it if you asked,” Evelyn said. “You _do_ know that, right?”  
  
“You couldn't have helped,” Solas said quietly, while staring at the floor. “Not with that.”  
  
“What  _did_  you try to do?”  
  
“Change the world,” he admitted with a humorless huff. “Recover what was lost.”  
  
“Like the orb?”  
  
“The orb was mine,” he said. “It was made for me.”  
  
“But you said it was an ancient elven artifact.”  
  
He looked her in the eyes as he said, plainly, “Yes.”  
  
The silence stretched as Evelyn stared. Her mind whirred, trying to piece things together. Before the Temple of Mythal, before meeting the last remnants of the ancient elves, she wouldn't have guessed this, but she had a few more pieces of the puzzle now, and they fit disturbingly well together.  
  
Of all the lies, the inconsistencies in Solas's behavior, the thing she remembered in that moment was the strange feeling she got the first time she saw the mural in the rotunda and discovered he was the artist. When had he found the time to perfect his craft? Where did he find space to practice it, while also spending most his life traveling? Then he'd asked to have a talk with her, and she'd forgotten the questions.   
  
Perhaps these were not the most important questions, not like 'when were you ever at court?' or 'how could you have possibly traveled that far?', but that she never pursued answers when so many times her instincts had snagged upon his lies—not even very good lies, in retrospect—only made her feel disappointed in herself.  
  
She pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration and closed her eyes tight.  
  
“This... explains a lot, actually,” she said.  
  
“I apologize,” he said.  
  
“No, but it  _does_.”  
  
Then she opened her eyes and looked at Solas again, and though she expected to see him in a different light, he looked much the same as he always did. The situation itself remained surreal, however.  
  
“So you're really old,” she said, amazed.  
  
“I am,” he confirmed.  
  
“Older than Corypheus?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“And yet he duped you out of your orb.”  
  
Solas opened his mouth to reply, and closed it again, leveling an unamused look at Evelyn. She blinked back at him much too innocently.  
  
“I wouldn't put it like that,” Solas said eventually.  
  
“No, I suppose you wouldn't,” she said, her tone ostensibly implying nothing.  
  
Solas watched her with narrowed eyes, but she kept a straight face.  
  
“Since you're taking this so well,” he said, and Evelyn sensed a trap behind his mildness, “shall I tell you my true name next?”  
  
“Oh, you've been lying about that too!” she remarked, crossing her arms. “Alright, then, let's have it.”  
  
He leaned closer, tilted his head to the side as if sharing a secret. Though she'd been glib before, Evelyn found herself curious.  
  
“Fen'Harel.”

Apprehension skittered up Evelyn's back.   
  
“Fen'Harel,” she repeated, the name strange in her mouth. “...Fen'Harel, like--” She'd meant to say 'like the elven god' before he cut her off.  
  
“The Dread Wolf?” he said. “The Betrayer?” He gave a thin smile. “The very same.”  
  
Evelyn pressed a hand against her cheek, perturbed for the first time by the conversation. To have companions admit secrets to her had lost its novelty. But this was so far outside her experience, that she turned away from Solas and paced away, assailed by the strangeness of the situation.  
  
She felt his gaze on the back of her head as she stopped in front of the glass doors leading to the balcony. It was too late in the evening to go out without getting chilled to the bone, and it was pitch black outside, anyway, but she still stared at the perfect Serault glass as if finding flaws in it would yield answers.  
  
She heard his steps approaching.   
  
“I understand if this is difficult for you,” he said.  
  
She turned on her heel and leaned back against the glass, its coolness along her back focusing her. Solas—she could not think of him as Fen'Harel—maintained his distance.  
  
“It's not really about your identity,” she said, “or even the orb. But this is as honest as you've been about yourself since I met you, and I don't know how much of what came before was real.” She swallowed before continuing. “I  _liked_  Solas.”  
  
He didn't answer right away, but he did approach her, moving silently and slowly. He placed a hand against the glass, right above Evelyn's shoulder, and put his weight against it as he leaned in close.  
  
“I lied about many things,” he said. “I would understand if you felt betrayed by that. But please believe that whatever friendship we shared was sincere on my part. You are a rare spirit, Inquisitor. I regret... in different circumstances, perhaps we...”  
  
“No. In different circumstances, I don't think we would have been friends,” she said with finality. He was startled, hurt flashing across his face. “I don't think you would have given me much thought at all.”  
  
He grimaced as if tasting something sour, but he couldn't argue against the truth of her words. He would have both judged her and dismissed her for being human, and never gotten to know her as he did now.  
  
“It's fine, though,” she said, and raised her hand up to his forearm, grasping it. “We know each other in  _these_  circumstances.”  
  
He hummed in agreement.  
  
They stood still for what seemed like a long time after that, silent and looking at each other. Evelyn thought she ought to take this time to process the confusing mess of information she'd just received, but the mood between them was strange, fraught with tension which reduced her thoughts to white noise.  
  
“There's more to talk about,” Solas said at one point.  
  
“Yes, but could we, I don't know, spread the revelations out a bit?” Evelyn requested. “Maybe leave one or two for the morning?”  
  
He chuckled darkly, but pushed off from the glass door.  
  
“Goodnight, Inquisitor,” he said as he departed her quarters.  
  
She thought that maybe meant 'yes', but she'd find out in the morning, if he was still around. Collapsing into bed felt like a good idea at the moment.

* * *

 

Evelyn didn't expect to fall asleep the moment her head hit the pillow, but it still took her a very long time. Her head buzzed with half-formed questions, and she was still readjusting her mental image of Solas.  
  
It probably didn't help that, as she started drifting off, she'd recall some incident or throwaway comment Solas had made and understand its meaning in a new light. Then she'd flinch and smack a palm against her face, which tended to wake her up again.  
  
She tired herself out at some point, but when she dreamed, it was with the same pronounced sense of reality as the time she'd spoken with Solas in the Fade. She recognized the quality of it now, even if she hadn't at the time.  
  
Back then, Skyhold had been new to her. Its walls hadn't yet become home and comfort to her, hadn't yet started to instill the same sense of safety and familiarity.  
  
She took the same path now as then, a hand trailing against the wall like petting the back of some great tame beast, and slowly she made her way down to the rotunda, like the last time. Details filled in as she walked—the creak of a certain step, the exact pattern of the glass windows, a broken tile, things she'd learned by heart about the fortress that dreams had not caught up to reflecting.  
  
When she entered the rotunda, Solas's desk was laden with notes, books and strange artifacts, just as it had before he left. In the real world, the desk was cleaned out by Leliana's people, in the hopes that they might discern some meaning from the items. The mural remained the same, incomplete.  
  
Yet Solas was not there this time. Perhaps he wasn't sleeping.  
  
Evelyn wasn't sure if she was disappointed, but she turned and walked back out into the great hall. A memory of flame crackled to life in the hearth as she passed, warm and inviting as when Varric sat by it. The longer she spent in the hall, the more she got the sense of bustling crowds, and voices started to echo as she reached the front steps.  
  
She looked out into the courtyard as she lingered on the steps. The dream didn't so much reform, as it revealed itself, bending to her memory. It was a strange sensation to witness this. It didn't feel like the lucid dreaming she'd experienced as a mage, or just as a normal dream. It felt too real, too present, and she could understand now why she hadn't noticed she'd been dreaming the first time.  
  
“You're learning to shape it,” Solas's voice came from behind her, and Evelyn nearly tripped at the sound, startled.  
  
He descended the stairs after her, looking entirely too amused.  
  
“Doesn't the Fade already reflect the minds of dreamers?” she asked.  
  
“Yes, but most do not—or cannot—affect it deliberately,” he replied as he stopped a few steps up from her.  
  
“Well, I definitely didn't dream like this before the Anchor,” Evelyn said. “ _Am_  I doing this deliberately?”  
  
“Intuitively, more like,” he said, looking out into the courtyard with fascination. The infirmary tents took shape as they talked. “You could do so much more with practice.”  
  
She tilted her head to look up at him curiously. The orb had been his focus, meant to aid him in his particular brand of magic, so that it didn't surprise her she'd get an imprint of that ability. Yet his fascination when they'd walked the Fade physically struck her as having been completely sincere, which indicated to Evelyn that with the Anchor she'd also gained abilities even he did not suspect.  
  
“I imagine there's some element of risk to that,” she said.  
  
He looked at her, grinned wolfishly—and what an appropriate turn of phrase that was, Evelyn thought.  
  
“There is an element of risk to everything,” he said, “but remaining ignorant only increases the danger.”

He began descending the stairs, past her, and this time stopped a few steps lower before turning and offering her his hand.  
  
“Come,” he said.  
  
Evelyn's eyebrows rose, but she smiled.  
  
“Where to?” she asked, and took the offered hand. He gripped it tighter than she expected.  
  
“Into the past,” he said.  
  
The world shifted around them, smoothly melting into new shapes. Evelyn looked down as she reached the bottom of the steps, and noticed the mosaic under her feet resembled nothing within Skyhold. It looked, in fact, to be the same style as the art at the Temple of Mythal, and it was made of glinting shards of crystal, blue in color. The pattern itself was either abstract or beyond Evelyn's comprehension.  
  
She looked up and around, and the resilient walls of Skyhold were gone, in their place pillars with ivy reliefs carved into them, and delicate archways rising towards a roofless sky.  
  
“Is this to distract me from the fact that we still have things to talk about?” she asked, though she was breathless at the beauty of the place.  
  
“Perhaps it's to distract  _myself_ ,” Solas replied, tone playful.  
  
Evelyn tore her eyes away from their surrounding to give Solas a sidelong look. He was different. Perhaps confession had unburdened him, but she suspected it was more than that. He looked at ease in the Fade, in a way he didn't in the real world.  
  
“Where were you all these months?” she asked softly. She was making a request, not a demand, and if he refused to say, she wouldn't press him for answers until morning.  
  
Solas sighed, his face turning grave. Evelyn thought he might let go of her hand, and found herself wishing he wouldn't.  
  
“I will tell you,” he said.   
  
Then he unexpectedly turned in a different direction, twirling Evelyn around as if in a practiced dance move. She gave a squeak of surprise, but in the next moment found herself pulled along down a wending path through the pillars, walking briskly behind him as he kept a firm hold on her hand.   
  
“I will answer your question,” he continued, looking over his shoulder at her with a sharp smile, “ _if_  you can also ask three good questions about what I will show you here.”  
  
“Oh, we're bargaining now?” she asked, her head catching up with him only a few beats slower than her feet. "Three to one doesn't sound like a very good ratio."  
  
“I needn't be fair,” he replied, a wicked glint in his eyes, and she could see it now clearer than ever before.  _Trickster_.  
  
She probably shouldn't have found it so exhilarating, but she did. And it wasn't as if learning a little something of the past could hurt.  
  
“Let's see it, then,” she replied, accepting his terms.


	2. Chapter 2

Evelyn woke slowly, to sunlight pouring into the room and a sense of wonder lingering from her dreams. As she scrubbed a hand over her face, she realized she was smiling. She couldn't remember ever waking up smiling before, but the moment was short lived.  
  
“Son of a bitch,” she hissed, and kicked off the covers.   
  
She sat up on the edge of the bed, waking fully as the cold nipped at her soles. He hadn't actually answered the question about where he'd been the past months. It  _had_  been a distraction on his part.  
  
Evelyn rose from bed, incensed and planning to track Solas down immediately. Her annoyance abated as she prepared for the day, however. The dream had been no more than that, and if they were going to discuss things, it did strike her as a better idea to do so in the real world.  
  
She didn't even know why she asked him what she did, when the more pressing questions should have concerned Corypheus, or the orb, or anything about what Solas really was. But it had been an impulsive gesture, a personal curiosity she couldn't keep in check. She didn't think about it before she asked. Perhaps the Fade really wasn't the place for such things.  
  
She stepped out into the throne room almost automatically turning to head for the rotunda, when one of Leliana's people intercepted her. In a few hushed words, Evelyn was redirected.  
  
Of course, in retrospect, Evelyn didn't know why she expected to just step into the rotunda and find Solas there, as if he'd never left. Evelyn had never really countermanded the order to search for Solas, but it hadn't occurred to her either that Leliana would keep searching so long after the trail had gone cold.  
  
Leliana herself was waiting just outside Josephine's office, a grim look on her face.  
  
“So it seems Solas has returned to us. But I am given to understand that you knew about his presence in Skyhold already?” Leliana asked without preamble.  
  
“Since last evening,” Evelyn replied, blinking.  
  
Leliana's lips drew into a tight line. She held her hands behind her back stiffly, frowning as she thought.

  
“Yes, that is what he told us, as well.”  
  
“Leliana, you, ah... you didn't throw him in a cell, did you?” Evelyn asked.  
  
“Of course not!” Leliana protested, completely sincere. “We only made sure he had a comfortable place to sleep overnight.”  
  
“And posted guards at the door, I presume.”  
  
“There might be guards somewhere in the vicinity, yes.”  
  
Evelyn shook her head, but Leliana had done nothing wrong.  
  
“Would you like to see him?” Leliana asked.  
  
“I think I should.”  
  
It was morning, and thus time for answers.

* * *

 

The quarters Solas was given were not, in truth, terrible, and as far as Evelyn knew, they might have been the same as the ones he had before. There were no personal items in the room, however, only a bed and other sparse furnishings.  
  
Solas was already waiting patiently when she arrived, sitting on the bed with his back against the wall, ankles crossed, fingers laced together across his abdomen. The very picture of unflappable calm, yet this was not a reprise of his act as humble elven apostate. Knowing what she did now, Evelyn couldn't help but see what was really lurking under the harmless veneer he'd cultivated.  
  
“Inquisitor,” he greeted.  
  
“I suppose we should continue our discussion,” she said.  
  
He inclined his head, cast his eyes down in acquiescence.   
  
It was such a different mood than in the Fade, that Evelyn faltered for a moment. Whatever sense of playful camaraderie had permeated the previous night's dream, it was not present here. The light of day was harsher, and the reality of the situation harder to ignore.  
  
“You haven't had breakfast yet, have you?” she asked, after the silence had already extended for an uncomfortable length of time.  
  
“Leliana did not see fit to provide me with food so long as I did not provide her with answers,” he said, giving a thin smile.  
  
“If that's all, then she's certainly mellowed out a lot since I met her,” Evelyn replied, because she could still remember a time when Leliana had been willing to order the outright murder of a rogue agent without thinking twice.  
  
“I would not call your spymaster mellow, no,” Solas said.  
  
“Not where she can hear, at least,” Evelyn whispered, casting a wary look towards the door.  
  
Solas didn't actually laugh at that, but he smiled and gave a very slight shake of his head at her antics.  
  
Evelyn stepped out into the hall only to have a brief conversation with the guards, and soon enough, someone was sent to the kitchens. A table was brought in, and an extra chair, and Solas watched all these proceedings in silence.  
  
The awkwardness in the room only seemed to rise when they were once again alone, but Evelyn pulled out a chair anyway and gave Solas a look.  
  
“Come on, sit,” she said, before making her way around the table to her own seat.  
  
Yet he was hesitating, and Evelyn had to wonder just what about this conversation he found so daunting.  
  
“You know, I couldn't help but notice,” Evelyn said, placing an elbow on the table and propping her chin on her palm—terrible etiquette, and her mother would balk, but that never stopped Evelyn from doing it anyway. “Last night, when you said if I asked three good questions you'd tell me where you've been? You never actually told me.”  
  
“Didn't I?” Solas said, thoughtfully, and rose from the bed to sit down at the table. “Ah, but I did not specify  _when_  I'd answer the question.”  
  
Evelyn narrowed her eyes at him.  
  
“Oh, I  _see_ ,” she said.  
  
“And as I recall,” Solas continued, cutlery clinking as he dragged food onto his plate, “your curiosity last night was focused on other things.”  
  
Evelyn made a non-committal sound. It was true, prancing around through old Elvhen memories, trying to unravel the purpose and mechanisms of their magic, she'd forgotten about everything else. Riddles and old knowledge had taken up all her attention, but she suspected they'd also taken up Solas's.   
  
He once spoke of the thrill of finding memories and wisdom lost to time, and she suspected there'd been something... vicarious, about getting to witness her experience the same zest.  
  
But he hadn't distracted her, she'd done that all by herself. Incensed by this realization, she picked up a roll, still hot from the oven, and slathered it in butter.

“Tell me about the orb,” she said.  
  
“What more is there to say? I gave it to Corypheus.”  
  
“You don't think the context matters?” Evelyn asked.  
  
“I think you're far too forgiving,” he said.  
  
Evelyn raised an eyebrow at him.  
  
“And you forgot to factor that in when you decided to throw yourself at my mercy?” she said.  
  
He seemed momentarily flustered.  
  
“Yes. Well.” That was his only reply, which indicated to Evelyn he really hadn't thought things through very well before he decided to spring up in her quarters unannounced.  
  
She giggled before biting into her roll.  
  
They ate in silence for a while, and surprisingly it was Solas who spoke next.  
  
“If you want context,” he said, “I would have to start as far back as several millenia ago.”  
  
“Do that, then,” Evelyn replied.  
  
He stared at her for a moment longer, before sighing and beginning his tale. Evelyn suspected she was getting a highly abridged and edited version, and possibly a biased one as well, but she couldn't deny it was absolutely fascinating.  
  
After recounting the many faults of Arlathan, his role in its downfall, the fate of the elven gods (“Not gods,” he insisted, however, “we were never gods.”), waking up from his long sleep weakened and much reduced, his story came around to recent events again.  
  
He finished telling her of his fruitless pursuit of Mythal, who he'd been sure could unlock his orb if only he could find her, and the growing frustration as she remained always a step ahead, and then he told her of Corypheus.  
  
Evelyn dropped her butterknife at this part.  
  
“You  _gave_  him the orb,” she said, stunned.  
  
“As I have told you,” Solas said, “several times already.”  
  
“Yes, but--” Evelyn looked down at the table, frowning.  
  
“But what?” he prompted.  
  
“I just didn't think you'd done it _on purpose_ ,” she blurted out.  
  
Solas stared at her for a long moment, before leaning back in his chair.  
  
“And now that you know?” he asked, looking at her expectantly.  
  
Evelyn had no answer. The Breach would not have happened if he hadn't given the orb to Corypheus, yet by the same token, it also wouldn't have happened if she hadn't been nosy and interrupted the sacrifice. A string of accidents, fumblings and bad decisions had all converged to result in a giant hole in the sky, and in a spectacularly selfish move, Evelyn did not want to be put in the position of punishing a friend for it.  
  
That night by the veilfire torch, he'd given the impression he was worried about the elves being blamed for the orb and the destruction it caused. In retrospect, perhaps he'd only been worried about himself.  
  
But now he'd shown up with the express purpose of taking the blame.  
  
“Before you left,” she said, “did you ever consider telling me about the orb?”  
  
“Not seriously,” he confessed. Then, more hesitantly, he added, “Perhaps at the end. When it was broken, there was a moment I...” He trailed off and shook his head. “No, it doesn't matter. I didn't.”  
  
“So what's changed now?”  
  
He was more than sad as he regarded Evelyn. Hollowed out by pain, he spoke haltingly.  
  
“What I attempted to accomplish, with the orb, with Mythal's help... it is no longer possible, if it ever was,” he said. “All my efforts, and all the suffering that resulted, was pointless.”  
  
“So that's it?” she asked. “You're here because you think you have nothing left?”  
  
“I  _do_  have nothing left, Inquisitor,” he replied, “except for the blame.”

Evelyn pushed back her chair and rose to her feet, fists clenched and shaking. She felt her face flushed, hot with anger.  
  
“You don't get out of it so easily,” she said, her voice taut. “You don't get to just waltz in and demand punishment to soothe your ailing conscience.”  
  
She rounded the table, walking towards him.  
  
“That's not how this is going to work,” she said.  
  
He watched her, more alert with every step she got closer. She stopped only when she was next to his chair, and he remained in place, though he craned his neck to look up at her.  
  
“How is it going to work, then, Inquisitor?” he asked.  
  
“I don't know yet,” she said, as she swallowed through the knot in her throat. “But if you're really so sorry, you should be looking for a way to make amends, not pestering me to help you in your quest for self-flagellation. If you can't think of a way on your own, I'll figure something out for you. I promise. But for now, can't I just... forgive you?”  
  
Solas's face slackened in surprise at the last part.  
  
“I don't deserve--”  
  
“I know,” she interrupted him, giving a weak chuckle. “I know you don't think so, this is just for me. Can I?”  
  
“You don't need my permission, Inquisitor,” he said, though he looked completely at a loss.  
  
She relaxed as he said that, anger draining out and her fists unclenching slowly. She nodded.  
  
“Alright then,” she said. She cupped his cheek, the Anchor flickering briefly and casting green shadows across his face. He didn't react to it. “Welcome back.”  
  
“Thank you,” he said, voice gentle and eyes curious.  
  
Evelyn smiled at him, warm and unhurried, glad to see him now that it was finally sinking in that he  _was_  back.   
  
She suspected she hadn't quite processed the rest of it—it had taken a few weeks for her mind to catch up with the concept of a giant breach in the sky, and when it did, she dissolved into a fit of hysterical giggling right in the middle of the Hinterlands after sealing a rift—but if she'd learned anything about herself, it was that she could handle a great deal more than she gave herself credit for.  
  
Her gaze slid down to his lips while she was lost in thought, but she didn't notice until she felt his breath against her face how close she was to kissing him.  
  
She all but jumped a step back, snatching her hand from his cheek and cradling it against her chest as if burnt.   
  
Solas looked at her, the shock on his face probably mirroring hers.  
  
A wave of heat passed over her—it should have been embarrassment, but she feared it wasn't really—and she remembered suddenly the reason they so rarely touched before. She would flirt outrageously with Dorian, or Sera, or Bull, but with Solas it had always been just stepping around each other, not-touching like an elaborate dance. Never saying anything outright, but exchanging knowing smiles, because the tension was satisfying enough. Neither of them ever saw it as anything more than a peculiarity of their relationship, something to give flavor to their interactions.   
  
But now Evelyn had strayed too near to something real, and she noticed her mistake too late.  
  
Solas licked his lips, looked about to start speaking. Before he could, Evelyn turned abruptly to walk back to her chair.  
  
“I just realized, we've never actually sat down and had a meal together unless we were camped out in the wilds,” she said.  
  
Solas shook his head as if to clear it.  
  
“No, I don't believe so,” he said, confused.  
  
“Well,” Evelyn said, “can't say I mind the lack of wind trying to steal my food.”  
  
He smiled uncertainly. It seemed to Evelyn like he didn't have the words any more than she did. And so by silent accord, they pretended nothing at all had happened.


	3. Chapter 3

“What will you tell Leliana?” Solas asked as breakfast came to an end.  
  
“Nothing,” Evelyn replied, “or at least not yet. Unless there's a reason you'd want me to reveal everything you told me?”  
  
“Not everything, and not to everyone,” he said, “but I thought you would at least tell her my name. She's a relentless woman. If you appease her with a valuable enough morsel of information, it might stop her from stumbling across something we  _wouldn't_  want her to find out.”  
  
“And you don't think she'll be able to tell she's being appeased?” Evelyn raised an eyebrow.  
  
Solas shrugged.  
  
“She most likely will,” he said. “But if you do, then perhaps when you tell her not to dig into the matter further, she might even obey you.”  
  
“You think she'll go behind my back otherwise?” Evelyn laughed.  
  
Solas merely smiled at her, giving a small shrug.  
  
Evelyn frowned in return. She honestly couldn't say if Leliana would or would not do that. She'd be quiet, discreet, so subtle that Evelyn wouldn't even know--  
  
Evelyn snorted, shaking off that line of thought.  
  
“I need to go,” she said, rising from the table and heading for the door.  
  
“And I will be here,” Solas said.  
  
Evelyn turned to look at him.  
  
“You realize you don't need to be, right?” she asked. “You're not a prisoner.”  
  
“I assumed you wouldn't want me leaving again,” he said.  
  
She didn't, but that didn't mean she wasn't realistic about her chances of stopping him if he got it in his head to escape. Evelyn sighed noisily and made a sharp beckoning gesture.  
  
“Come on, let's get you out of this room before you become even more of a depressing old hermit,” she said.  
  
“Impossible,” he said as he rose. “That is a persona I have already perfected.”  
  
Prisoner or not, news of Solas's return had already spread around Skyhold, with the speed expected of rumor. Nobody seemed particularly surprised to see them walking together towards the rotunda.

Once they actually got there, Dorian was already leaning against the banister of the library, looking down with an expectant air.  
  
“Well, well, look what the cat dragged back in,” Dorian said, grinning. “Sadly it didn't drag you anywhere within the proximity of a tailor, I see.”  
  
“Dorian,” Solas says by way of greeting. “Unfortunately, all the tailors in Thedas are kept busy attaching absurd amounts of buckles to all of  _your_ garments.”  
  
Dorian laughed, the genuine happiness in the sound lifting even Evelyn's spirits. He and Solas continued their repartee as Evelyn climbed up to the rookery.  
  
The conversation with Leliana was harrowing, but in Evelyn's estimate, it went fairly well. Leliana was skeptical, but only in the general way she was suspicious of everyone around her. She had seen too many strange things to be phased by the revelation that the Inquisitor had been keeping company with a living elven god.  
  
One thing Evelyn did manage was to recover some of Solas's books and notes, which Leliana allowed with a resigned sigh of 'very well'.  
  
Evelyn carried the stack down to the rotunda, where she proceeded to drop it onto Solas's desk. Solas looked down from the scaffolding, where he seemed to be busying himself with mixing paint, and climbed down.  
  
“I don't know if you still need this stuff,” Evelyn said, “but here it is.”  
  
He picked up the topmost tome, a thoughtful look on his face as he leafed through it.  
  
“I was attempting to learn more about this age,” he admitted in a low voice. “To acquaint myself with details of common knowledge.” Then he picked up the next volume, a treatise on the Fade. “And, of course, establish how much of my own knowledge to conceal.”  
  
He passed the book to Evelyn, and she snorted.  
  
“You mean so you'd know how far 'I learned it in the Fade' could get you before you started straining credibility?” she said, pitching her voice low as well.  
  
“It turns out, farther than I thought.” He smirked.  
  
“Yes, yes, we were all so incredibly gullible,” Evelyn said. She propped a forearm on top of the book stack, and leaned in close to Solas, speaking just above a whisper, but still managing to channel every drop of sarcasm in her body into the words. “None of us thought there was  _anything_ strange about you at all. Never  _once_  did we suspect you had a past you didn't want to talk about, or pick up on the many inconsistencies in your apostate act but allowed you your privacy anyway because we trusted you'd tell us if it ever became important. You fooled us all so  _completely_! Good job, Fen'Harel. You must be so proud.”  
  
Solas stood stiffly throughout this diatribe, the frown on his face deepening as he watched Evelyn's lips and listened to her words. Yet Evelyn couldn't tell if he was actually displeased, or thinking back on previous interactions, trying to assess the truth of what she was saying. He was not saying anything, and even after she finished, he remained silent for a while.  
  
And then he produced a low rumble deep in his throat.  
  
Evelyn pulled back, blinking in surprise.  
  
“Did you just  _growl_  at me?” she asked, incredulous.  
  
“Take the book, Inquisitor,” he said, tapping the volume she still held in her hand. “Despite a few glaring errors, it is mostly accurate.”  
  
Then he turned around and climbed back up on the scaffolding.  
  
But Evelyn stood there for a while longer, watching his back as he studiously ignored her.

* * *

Evelyn placed the book on the corner of her desk when she returned to her quarters. She had letters to draft, part of the obligations she needed to fulfill in service of the Inquisition's complicated web of connections.   
  
Everything she wrote would later pass under Josephine's able pen, of course, to be rephrased and polished until it shone with a diplomatic razor's edge, but increasingly, over the months since defeating Corypheus, Evelyn saw herself drawn deeper into a labyrinth of paperwork. Somewhere, she'd passed a tipping point where her obligations in Skyhold started outweighing the need for her presence anywhere else. It unnerved her.  
  
Evelyn struck out a particularly belligerent paragraph, instead replacing it with a note:  _Josie, please insert vague threat here—imply I don't actually care enough to be upset but will make them pay for it at later date, that sort of thing._  
  
She then went on to make her next point, which was more tedious to construct, and required her to consult previous correspondence to make sure she was addressing it fully. She made good progress for a while, with words arranged in the way Josephine had shown her, telling without revealing or promising anything. But in between phrases, as she paused to compose the next parts in her head, her eyes kept drifting over to the book on the corner of the desk.  
  
Curiosity won out eventually, and, as she came close to finishing the letter, Evelyn picked up the book.   
  
The spine creaked as she opened it, and the pages had a particular dusty texture that made her feel like sneezing just by feeling it under her fingers. The contents were more compelling, a treatise on the nature of the Fade by some addled Tevinter magister who'd spent too much time poking around in it.  
  
It  _was_  a fascinating read, and it was a while before she finally put the book down again, knowing she ought to get back to her letterwriting, but even then, she wondered. And, staring off into the distance, she found herself daydreaming about the Fade.

* * *

Evelyn didn't see Solas again that day. After handing off the letters to Josephine and skimming through a few reports at the war table, a brief visit to the rotunda did not turn him up, though the mural was in progress.  
  
She couldn't figure out where else he'd be, and had to admit she had scant knowledge about his personal habits, but he did turn up in one place she expected to find him.  
  
“We keep meeting like this,” she remarked, standing before him in the dream version of the rotunda. “Is it going to become a habit?”  
  
Solas leaned back against the edge of his desk, arms crossed as he smirked. There was something altogether too smug about his demeanor, in Evelyn's opinion.  
  
“You tell me, Inquisitor,” he replied. “You're the one reaching out to me.”  
  
Evelyn's eyebrows rose at this piece of information.  
  
“No,” Evelyn said, not in denial, so much as disbelief. “I couldn't have.”  
  
“Evidence to the contrary,” Solas said. “You've done so three times already.”  
  
“But-- I didn't mean to-- I don't know how I--” She was at a loss. Solas's shoulders were starting to shake in silent mirth. “Oh, stop smirking at me!”  
  
She tried to swat his arm, but he was swifter, and he caught her wrist before she could. Then he started laughing in earnest, his grip tight but not painful.  
  
She huffed, trying to look more annoyed than she actually felt. His laughter subsided soon enough, and his expression turned thoughtful as he inspected the scar in her palm.  
  
“Have you given any more thought to expanding on the Anchor's abilities?” he asked.  
  
She should have expected the question, but she was still startled by it. She hadn't thought about it at all after he brought it up the first time. With Corypheus defeated, she couldn't see much point to it, though she had to admit that simply because she didn't see the point didn't mean there was no merit to the notion. Perhaps Solas knew something she didn't. That did tend to be the case in most matters.  
  
“Do  _you_  think I should?” she asked.  
  
He tore his gaze away from the Anchor to look at her instead.  
  
“When you were marked,” he said, “you became something unique in all of Thedas. For all that you've accomplished, you have so far tapped into only a small fraction of the power granted to you by the Anchor. With guidance, you could learn more. You could  _be_  more.” And his voice took on a strange note of intensity as he added, “And you could shape a new world out of the wreckage of this one.”  
  
That was not the answer she expected, and Evelyn was left speechless for a few long moments before she managed to gather her thoughts.  
  
“That seems like a lot of power for one person to have,” she said.  
  
Amusement flashed across Solas's face. He drew her marked hand to him, placing it flat over his heart and covering it with his own to keep it in place. Evelyn was momentarily distracted by the strange intimacy of the gesture, and so did not resist when he also put a hand against the back of her head and pulled her closer, until they were nearly nose to nose.   
  
Her mouth went dry, but she felt pleasantly confused by these circumstances, and remained pliant in his hold.  
  
“You already have power, Inquisitor,” Solas said evenly. “From your fortress, you command the fate of entire nations. What I'm offering is simply an additional way of accomplishing your goals, if you should use it wisely.” He smiled at her. “And I do believe you will.”  
  
This close, she felt surrounded by him on all sides, drawn in safe by his presence, and so when the fear bubbled to the surface of her mind, she gave it voice without pausing to think about it.  
  
“You say that now, but what if I change?” she asked. “What if I turn into someone awful?”   
  
“After all you've done for your friends,” he said, “don't you trust us to watch over you in turn? To save you from becoming whatever it is you fear?”  
  
“I... oh.” She looked away, so warmed by the sentiment that she felt embarrassed. “Of course I do.”  
  
“Then?”  
  
“Then I suppose... yes, alright.” She nodded. “I'd like to learn.”


	4. Chapter 4

In the Fade, Evelyn encountered a side of Solas she had only occasionally glimpsed before.  
  
She agreed to learn, and so lessons followed, but there was something about Solas's manner that suggested he relished them even more than she did. He had no reason to hide the extent of his knowledge anymore, and so when he spoke of the Fade, it was often with a fierce grin across his face, and unbound confidence in his voice. It was familiar, the tone of the scholar, the cadence she'd come to recognize, except now there was no mistaking how self-assured Solas really was.  
  
He was also by far the most demanding instructor Evelyn had ever had, but then again, he was probably the one with most to teach. He demonstrated for her magical techniques lost to time, showed her paths of the Fade none had walked for millennia, and in return expected nothing less than her full engagement.  
  
And he  _touched_  her. Constantly. It was always innocuous: hands on her shoulders as he guided her, or his palm against her back, reassuring her while she attempted something new, a gentle squeeze on her arm when she got it right. It wasn't distracting, exactly, and if she did allow herself to be distracted by it, he would grasp her chin and firmly turn her face back towards whatever required her attention at that moment.   
  
But he always remained just inside her personal space, always hovering at her back with his voice in her ear. Evelyn wasn't sure why it didn't bother her, but in the Fade, his behavior did not seem so out of place.  
  
It did not carry over in the waking world. In fact, once the lessons began, the first time they ran into each other during the day, they both reacted as if startled, and looked away quickly. Though the embarrassment was glossed over quickly, after that, if they ever touched while awake, it felt fraught with tension, both old and new.  
  
Evelyn didn't particularly dislike this new turn of events, but she was beginning to wonder if it was leading up to anything concrete.

* * *

Solas came to her quarters one day. She was making her way through a tedious stack of paperwork, and she almost groaned when he slipped a written report to her.  
  
“What's this?” she asked, trying not to scrunch her nose like a child being assigned another tedious chore.  
  
“Reports of a rift,” he said, and when she looked up at him, he made a calming gesture. “A small one, it isn't urgent. In fact, it's in the middle of the wilderness, far away from any road or settlement. Your scouts stumbled upon it by accident.”  
  
“Alright,” she said, and scanned the report, trying to figure out why it would be of any interest. “So there's nothing there?”  
  
“Not... anymore,” he said, and the pause was telling. “But it's a good location for you to practice your abilities.”  
  
“Practice my--” She blinked. “What exactly would I be doing there?”  
  
“You didn't think we'd be limiting your lessons to the Fade, did you?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “You have a solid theoretical foundation, now it is time to put it to work.”

* * *

In the end, having not left Skyhold for a while, it was quite easy for the Inquisitor to find business needing attending in Orlais, and to arrange for a detour along the way.  
  
The rift really was in the middle of nowhere, near where the Dales turned into the Deauvin Flats. The forest was sparse, but it was still a long walk from the Inquisition outpost to where the rift had been sighted.  
  
Fortunately, they came across nothing dangerous in the forest, and the weather was forgiving that day, so they walked together in companionable silence, at a leisurely pace, until they reached a grove littered with the stones of old ruins. Evelyn's palm itched as she saw the curling emerald lights in the distance, but Solas stopped her from advancing.  
  
“No,” he said, “you can seal it after.”  
  
“What exactly am I going to be doing here?” she asked.  
  
“Nothing you haven't done before,” Solas replied, still looking at the rift in the distance.  
  
“Please tell me you don't mean for me to walk the Fade physically again,” she said.  
  
He said nothing, and Evelyn had her answer.  
  
“You do!” she said, accusing. “After everything that happened, why would I even think of doing that?”  
  
“Because this time, it would be on purpose.”   
  
He turned to her, catching her hand and holding it up between them. The Anchor flared, green sparks following the lines of tension in her fingers. He brushed a thumb over her knuckles, soothing. This was new, and it gave Evelyn pause.  
  
“There are no demons in the Fade here,” he said softly. “There will be nothing trying to kill you. If you can't take us out again, we have the rift nearby. And, of course,” he smiled at her, “I will be with you. There's no need to be scared.”  
  
Evelyn was almost lulled by his words and gentle touch, her apprehension lessening as he spoke, but the last part rankled, and she pulled her hand back.  
  
“Being scared isn't the issue here,” she said, almost wounded that he'd think so. “I've done plenty of things that scared me. But walking in the Fade again doesn't seem like a good idea, even without demons trying to kill me.”  
  
“Ah, I see.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “It's understandable you should think that way, but the point still stands that this is still something you must learn how to do in order to master the Anchor. You did it by reflex at Adamant, and you might do it again sometime in the future. Wouldn't you like to have more control over the process next time it happens?”  
  
Evelyn sighed, resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose.  
  
“Yes,” she said, “I would like to know what I'm doing before I'm actually doing it, for once. But this all still seems a bit...” She shook her head. “...bizarre. Just bizarre. The more I think about it--”  
  
“Then don't think about it,” Solas interrupted.   
  
He took her by the shoulders and turned her around, facing away from the rift's light.   
  
“Think of how you control the Anchor,” he said, his fingers curled around her shoulders grounding her, lips so close to her ear she could feel the tickle of his breath. “Think of how easily you command it. Its magic has become familiar to you, hasn't it? This is no more difficult than closing a rift, it's simply the same action reversed.”  
  
It all sounded reasonable when he said it, or perhaps Evelyn was too distracted by the weight of his presence at her back to think otherwise. But either way, she raised her hand, uncertain of what she was doing until she was already gathering the magic at her fingertips.   
  
She had the half-recalled memory of falling at Adamant, down, down, and then through, and she tried to remember  _through_ , the feeling of the Veil peeling open across her skin and admitting her into the Fade.  
  
“Don't hesitate,” Solas said, sounding breathless, giddy with anticipation as the magic built, “don't stop halfway. Take a breath and... step.”  
  
He pushed her forward, not hard, but suddenly, and she squeaked in surprise, stumbling.   
  
The Veil parted, and on the next step she stood, once again, in the Fade. It happened so quickly that she didn't even notice until she'd already whipped around and was met with the sight of Solas grinning at her, oozing satisfaction.  
  
Despite all her misgivings, in that moment, she felt triumph thundering through her veins.

* * *

It was nothing like Adamant, or the first time at Haven. There was nothing frightening here, nothing skittering in dark corners. It was very green, and still strange, the ground uneven, the shapes jutting out of the ground nonsensical, but it was also, Evelyn thought, beautiful.  
  
There was something almost like a building before them, a labyrinth of dislocated walls and stairs, hallways that went nowhere, sudden drops, archways and pillars supporting nothing.  
  
Solas was fascinated by everything. He stalked along the halls, tracing the memory of stonework with his hands, finding the places where the Fade folded in on itself, creating pathways to other places. He observed the memories bleeding through, and the shapes of old thoughts taking form.  
  
“Was Adamant really the first time you walked the Fade physically?” Evelyn asked.  
  
He'd just pointed out a memory of a vase, filled with flowers long extinct, and though it didn't follow from their conversation, the question did just occur to Evelyn as she watched him.  
  
“Not precisely like this,” he replied, plucking one of the flowers from the vase. It melted away in his hand, but far from being disappointed, his curiosity seemed stoked.  
  
“Precisely like what, then?”  
  
He smiled, the question pleasing him the way questions of the Fade always did.  
  
“Come.”   
  
He beckoned her towards a window, as wide as a set of double doors. The ledge was wide, and he sat on it. After a second's hesitation, so did Evelyn, sitting sideways, with her body turned towards him.  
  
“Look at the horizon,” he instructed, gesturing towards the world outside the window.  
  
She did, looking off into the distance. She wasn't sure was she was looking for, but her eyes couldn't quite grasp any meaning to the shapes, as if they were evading her. Distances made just as little sense, and she was assailed with contradictory impressions of near-far-here-there that made her feel dizzy.  
  
She swayed in place, nauseated, but Solas caught her, holding onto her and keeping her from falling. She clung to his shirt in turn, and leaned her forehead against his shoulder, blinking rapidly to disperse the unpleasant afterimages.  
“What was  _that_?” she asked.  
  
“You see,” Solas explained, “you bring it with you. The Fade isn't real, but when you use the Anchor to step into it, you bring a piece of your world into it, and a certain measure of its immutability. You  _make_  it real. When you leave, the Fade goes back to what it was. And you will notice this ability has a certain range, beyond which you can see the Fade as it usually is. I imagine for someone unused to it, the effect must be quite confusing. Are... you well?”  
  
She unclenched her hands and smoothed down his shirt. Her vision had cleared, and she felt steady again, but Solas was still holding her. One of his hands had found its way to the back of her neck, cool fingers pressing against the skin and making her tingle.  
  
She leaned back only slightly, raised her head enough to look at him.  
  
“I'm fine,” she said. “I shouldn't have stared so hard,” she added more sheepishly.  
  
He hummed, and brushed a lock of hair from her face, tracing a slow path over the arch of her brow.  
  
“To answer your question,” he continued, though now he seemed to be more concentrated on her cheekbone as he traced a thumb across it, “it's possible to bring a measure of the real world to the Fade, make it behave as something relatively static, but not to the extent the Anchor does, and not without sustained effort. It is, as I've said, not precisely the same thing. Do I still have your attention, Inquisitor?”  
  
Evelyn's eyelashes fluttered as she looked up from his lips to his eyes.  
  
“Sorry, no,” she murmured. “You're distracting me.”  
  
He chuckled, a low and rich sound that washed over Evelyn like molten fire and settled in the pit of her chest.  
  
He leaned closer, and her breath hitched as she felt his lips almost against hers, almost touching, filling the space between them with heat and promise.  
  
“Am I now?” he asked in a purr.   
  
She felt the shape of his mouth as he spoke, could almost taste him for how close he was.  
  
She was about to make some frustrated reply to his teasing, but just as she opened her mouth, he kissed her.   
  
It was searing and unrelenting. Whatever hesitation held him back until now, it had snapped in the space between seconds, and he poured himself into that kiss, along with every demand, every want he had of her. And Evelyn took it all, hungry for him in ways she'd never been for anyone.   
  
Her breath was ragged and her mouth almost ached when they finally came apart again, but Solas did not look any less affected. His cheeks were flushed. Evelyn felt pleased by the sight, and grinned at him. He probably guessed what her grin was about, because he nipped at her lower lip as if chiding her.  
  
She laughed, then nipped back, and soon they were exchanging kisses again, brief and playful as the first one hadn't been.


	5. Chapter 5

In rapid succession, Evelyn became acquainted with the feel of Solas's fingers digging into the back of her thigh as he pulled her onto his lap to straddle him, his teeth against her earlobe, and his palm somehow getting past her armor and finding the small of her back, a sudden contact of skin which made her arch and gasp.  
  
“We're going to fall,” she said, looking past the window ledge—not a long fall, but not the kind of tumble Evelyn had in mind, either.  
  
“Don't look down,” he replied, and then did something with his mouth against her neck that made Evelyn whimper shakily.  
  
There was nothing to hold on to, no glass to brace against, no window frame, nothing but him between her and the drop, so she held onto him, caught between his hand against her back, and the hard lines of his body. He felt strong enough to keep her from falling, and so the empty space beyond the ledge became something thrilling rather than frightening. Yet she couldn't stop herself from looking down. She certainly didn't want to watch the churning horizon.   
  
He released her thigh so he could open her collar, tugging on the clasps one-handed and somehow managing to pop them open, and he pushed the collar aside so he could continue laving attention on her neck, down to her shoulder, over her collarbone.   
  
She wanted to feel his skin, too, but his clothes didn't have any convenient openings. She still slipped her hands under his vest, felt the shape of him through his shirt, the shift of muscles. She slid a hand to his cheek, then to the back of head. When he pressed his mouth flat against her shoulder and sucked, she hissed and dug nails into the back of his neck, grinding down reflexively. He chuckled, and she retaliated by brushing her lips over the shell of his ear and giving a tiny, vulnerable sigh.  
  
He shuddered as he heard it, his arm tightening around her waist, his face hidden in the crook of her neck.   
  
He drew back to look up at her, lust etched all over his features. She set her forehead against his, and even as he tilted his face up to catch her in a kiss, she kept just out of reach, lips almost touching, just as he'd teased her earlier.   
  
“Come here,” he said, like an invitation, or a promise from a desire demon.  _Come here, I have something for you._  
  
She did want to kiss him, again and again, but she could do that later, when she'd worked out the mischief from her system. For now, she only grinned at him, moving out of his reach to give him a sidelong glance.  
  
“Or what, you'll growl at me again?” she asked. “Or bite me?”  
  
His frustration melted into amusement, and Evelyn didn't understand why until he mimicked the motion of biting at her, teeth clacking together, like an animal snapping its jaws; like something a  _wolf_  might do. Evelyn flinched back, blinking rapidly as she felt heat flush over her body.   
“Would you like me to?” he asked, and swept his gaze over her. Her tunic was open half-way, exposing a shoulder, revealing her breast band. His eyes settled on the swell of her breast. “Is there somewhere in particular you want it?”  
  
“Well, preferably not on a windowsill,” she said, casting a look over his shoulder.  
  
He hummed, eyes still fixed on her chest. He grasped the back of her thigh and rose up.  
  
She shrieked in surprise, throwing her arms around his neck and clamping her legs around his waist. He was completely unbothered, however.  
  
“I think the wall we passed looked promising,” he said conversationally. She heard the grin in his voice as he continued, “Or would you prefer a bed?”  
  
“Never done it in a bed,” Evelyn muttered against his shoulder, concentrating on holding on. He laughed.  
  
“You're not serious,” he said.  
  
“Never had the chance. At the Circle. It was usually... dark corners, hallways, closets... one time on top of a bookcase, that was certainly memorable.”  
  
He stopped walking. Evelyn had the terrible thought that she'd said something wrong, because he firmly pushed down on her knee, unfolded her legs from around his waist, and made her stand.  
  
When she looked at his face, he seemed... grave.  
  
“What?” she asked, self-consciously tugging her tunic to cover her shoulder.  
  
“Nothing,” he said quickly, pressing a hand against her cheek. She didn't quite believe him, and it must have shown in her face, because he continued, “But now I know how I wish to have you.”   
  
He slid his hand down the column of her neck, over her chest. He paused just above her heart, fluttering nervously inside her ribcage, and she thought he would continue speaking, but he only smiled, his thoughts unreadable as he stared at his own fingers pressed against her.  
  
“How?” she asked, but he only shook his head.  
  
“You'll find out when we return.”

* * *

She re-did all the clasps on her tunic, tense and frowning, and by the time she reached the one at her throat, her hands were shaking. Solas noticed—of course he did, he was standing right there, watching her—and grasped her fingers, holding them as he leaned forward and kissed her sweetly.  
  
When they pulled apart, Evelyn sighed, feeling steadied.  
  
“So... about the Anchor,” she said. “You said its ability had a range. Around what, exactly? The entry point? Or me?”  
  
“Ah, you  _were_  listening,” he said, pleased. He'd been been staring wistfully at her throat, as if contemplating undressing her again, but his attention shifted easily back to the conversation.  
  
“Did you think I wouldn't be?” she retorted. Then, taking on a very serious air she added, “I do realize you have more to offer than just a pretty face.”  
  
He chuckled and brought a hand up to the back of her head, pulling her into another kiss. This one was deeper, longer, leaving her breathless.  
  
“I do not know,” he said after they broke apart.  
  
“...What?” Evelyn garbled, glassy-eyed, all previous thought scattered like pages in the wind.  
  
The look he gave her was much too self-satisfied.  
  
“I can't answer your question, Inquisitor,” Solas said. “But it would be an easy thing to test, if you wish. Merely time-consuming.”  
  
“Oh... no, we should get back,” she said, perhaps a bit too quickly. She cleared her throat. “How do I...?”  
  
“Mm, well.”   
  
He moved behind her, as was his habit when he instructed her, except this time his hand lingered on her hip before moving up the dip of her waist. It was a casual touch, not so much promise as comfort, and his left hand slid down Evelyn's arm, before settling against the back of her hand and lacing his fingers between hers. The Anchor flared, a steady, sympathetic reaction to his magic. To Evelyn, it wasn't the familiar nerves-on-fire sensation, but a thrum—warm and resonant and not even close to painful.  
  
“You're the only one who can figure out the specifics,” he said, turning her palm upwards, “but I believe I can guide you through the process.”  
  
“Sounds good,” she said, her voice thick as she watched their twined hands awash in green light.

* * *

It was not as easy as going in, but she figured it out, and they burst through with a flash, falling to the forest floor in a flurry of leaves. Evelyn gasped—nothing in the Fade had had a smell, and she only noticed this now, with the earthy scent of rotting leaves in her nose—and she rolled onto her back.  
  
It was night. A full moon hung in the air. There were crickets chirping.  
  
“And I'm not even unconscious, or anything,” she said, and turned her head towards Solas.  
  
He was laying on his side, looking at her with a faint smile. His face was mostly cast in shadow, but she could see the curl at the corner of his lip as the moonlight fell on his cheek.  
  
“A fine performance, for your first attempt,” he agreed.  
  
She rolled on her side as well, to face him, pillowing her head on her arm. He could probably see her just fine; she knew elves had far better night vision than humans. She did wonder how much better, however, and squinted at him thoughtfully.  
  
He rose up on an elbow, and as the moonlight caught his eyes, they turned reflective, glinting yellow in the darkness. It wasn't Evelyn's first time witnessing this effect; she'd braved enough caverns or dark corridors with Solas or Sera at her side to be well used to it. But it felt different to have those eyes on her, watching, paying attention to nothing else.  
  
He reached out to trace the lines of her face, and she closed her eyes. It was pleasant; new. She couldn't remember anyone else doing something quite so intimate with her.  
  
“This was a beginning,” he spoke, voice hushed to protect the peace of the moment. “But there is so much more you could learn to do.”  
  
“Like what?” she asked, not really caring but wanting to hear him.  
  
“Anything!” Intensity she did not expect from him made her open her eyes. “Everything! You are limited only by imagination. You have so many possibilities at your fingertips, you need only the time to explore them.” His voice lowered again. “And you could have that, too, if you wished.”  
  
To Evelyn, the words sounded like temptation, a demon dangling pretty baubles for the naïve mage. But it wasn't a demon saying them, it was Solas.  
  
No, she thought then. It was Fen'Harel. And somewhere between Fen'Harel and Solas, there had to be a difference, a chasm filled with lies, half-truths and omissions. To think otherwise was foolish, no matter how forgiving she was by nature.  
  
“What do you mean?” she asked, cautious. Asking couldn't hurt, asking didn't mean accepting.  
  
He moved closer, but she still couldn't see his face, only glinting yellow reflections in the night.  
  
“Years,” he said. “Ages, millennia.”  
  
“Are you talking about immortality?” she asked, certain he couldn't be.  
  
“Not exactly immortality, but a lifespan so long as to be functionally similar,” he answered, calm as if it were a matter of trivia. “It would be easy.” His fingers twitched. “Laughably easy. The Anchor grants you the magic you'd need to fuel the spell, and you have the necessary control and discipline. I could show you how to weave it--”  
  
“Solas, no.”  
  
She sat up abruptly. Eternity yawned before her, and her mind shied away from trying to imagine it. Years upon years upon years, and something deep inside revolted against living more of them than she could count.  
  
“What would I even do with something like that?” she asked, laughing ruefully. “How would I explain myself?”  
  
He sat up next to her, and she could see his face in the moonlight. Had she glimpsed disappointment out of the corner of her eye, or only imagined it?  
“You wouldn't need to explain yourself,” he said, disregarding her first question. “To the believers, you would be the Herald of Andraste, and your longevity further proof of holiness. To the skeptics, you would still be bearer of the Anchor, and the mark on your hand would offer explanation enough.”  
  
“And then they'd want to replicate it, yes?” she said, folding her arms. “A thousand maniacs thinking they could get their own mark if they just used enough blood magic, struck enough bargains with demons. No price too high for such a reward, right? Or even better,” she shook her head, “I become like Corypheus, a relic, some pathetic husk trying to cling to relevance well past my time.”  
  
Then Evelyn clenched her jaw, biting down on whatever she was going to say next, knowing it would only be harsh.  
  
She heard Solas exhale slowly.  
  
“I apologize,” he said.   
  
He put an arm around her shoulder, tentatively, to see if she allowed it, and when she did not shrug him off, her moved closer, pressed his face in her hair.   
  
“I apologize,” he said against her ear. “If I made unfair presumptions of your character, it is my mistake. But,” he continued, “I would not offer this if I thought you could ever become like Corypheus. I've delivered enough misery upon the world that I do not want to be responsible for more. I look at you and I see a force for good. I see all that you've accomplished, all you've overcome, and fear nobody your equal will ever grace the world again. And... perhaps I am also being selfish. You've become... important to me. More important than I ever expected a human to be.”  
  
“Oh.” She sighed because she felt them now, the differences she'd been ignoring between them, the incongruities between what they were. Not just human and elven, but... She'd never stopped to think what 'immortal' truly meant for him, or how brief her passing would be through his life.   
  
She also hadn't thought about what she wanted from him, other than just him, his touch, his presence, his words. She'd had dalliances, but never lovers, and did not understand the mechanics of how a relationships came to be. How could she contemplate ages, when she did not think further ahead than the next kiss or caress?   
  
And yet...  
  
She turned towards him, brushed her cheek against his.  
  
“You don't need to apologize,” she said, “I just wasn't expecting it. I...”  
  
“Of course.” He kissed her temple. “This isn't something to take lightly. I will not insist, but please think on it. The offer remains open.”  
  
The conversation finished, he moved to rise. Evelyn grabbed onto his arm before he could. He stopped and looked at her.  
  
“I've never been in love before,” she blurted out, and felt horrified by her own honesty. “I don't know--” Whether she  _was_  in love? Whether  _he_ was? If she could match whatever feelings he had, if they would last even if she could?   
  
She didn't know any of the answers, and so lapsed into silence, staring at the ground, afraid to say anything lest she irredeemably break something between them.  
  
The panic must have shown on her face, because next she felt his knuckles against the underside of her chin, tilting her face towards him.  
  
“It might end badly,” he said, face unreadable, and voice melancholy, “but I want you to be happy for as long as possible.”  
  
She didn't understand, but she nodded, swallowing dryly.   
  
He drew her up to her feet, and held her hand the entire way back to the outpost. Perhaps it was to keep her from tripping in the dark. But maybe, Evelyn thought, he did it because it was the kind of thing lovers did.


	6. Chapter 6

Evelyn half-expected things to be even more awkward in the morning, and if she stopped to dwell on things, perhaps they would have been. Instead, she woke early and rode out to close the rift, and fielded a knowing smirk from the outpost commander who was, no doubt, imagining what else she might have been doing with Solas out in the woods the other day, if not closing that very rift. She responded with a long-suffering sigh which possibly only confirmed the commander's suspicions.  
  
Solas was sedately having breakfast while sitting alone on a bench set up behind the outpost tower. Evelyn slid in next to him, picking at her own food, some sort of vaguely oatmeal-ish gruel sweetened to the point it no longer tasted like breakfast.  
  
They sat eating in silence for a while, contemplating the landscape before them—a meadow filled with frolicking snoufleurs—before Solas broke the silence.  
  
“You shouldn't have gone alone, no matter how small the rift,” he said.  
  
“I had back-up,” she said very seriously, pointing towards where her dracolisk was hitched to a post, well away from the horses. “I took Anaximander.”  
  
Hearing its name, the creature turned malevolent eyes towards them. It made a hissing, clicking noise in its throat, something Evelyn described as a 'chirping' and everybody else as a warning of impending violence.  
  
Solas looked away from it and towards Evelyn.  
  
“That creature will turn on you one day,” he said, only repeating what countless other people had told Evelyn at one point or another. She snorted.  
  
“Oh, but what a ride he'll be until then!” she replied cheerfully, before stuffing more gruel into her mouth.  
  
This gave Solas pause for a few seconds, and he looked at her as if trying to figure out if she meant anything else by it. She only grinned around her spoon and raised her eyebrows, feigning complete innocence.  
  
Solas shook his head and went back to eating.

* * *

By mid-morning, they mounted and proceeded towards Montsimmard, and not until they were already most of the way there did Evelyn start to wonder how in the loop Solas was with current events. For all she knew, he had spent all the time after the battle with Corypheus in the wilderness, by himself.  
  
Asking Solas about it produced only incredibly opaque non-answers. This wasn't the time and place to pursue this line of questioning, however, so she instead told him about the reformation of the Circles, no longer under Templar or Chantry control, and about Fiona's founding of the new College of Enchanters.  
  
Solas did seem intrigued by the news about the College.  
  
“And how do you find them?” he asked.  
  
“Easily,” Evelyn replied, “I just follow the sound of whining.”  
  
Solas eloquently raised an eyebrow, and Evelyn sighed.  
  
“I mean,” she said, reining back her annoyance, “I would find them more tolerable if their first order of business hadn't been to immediately start bickering with the Circle. It's what this trip to Montsimmard is about. I'm meant to be mediating.”  
  
“You sound frustrated,” he remarked.  
  
She turned to look at him, grinning.  
  
“I'm sure I'll find  _some_  way of working through my frustrations,” she replied with a theatrical sigh. “If I must.”  
  
“You do show a penchant for finding solutions to even the most vexing of problems,” he agreed.

* * *

Soon enough, they were in Montsimmard, and this stymied any further conversation. A veritable posse of Inquisition diplomats met Evelyn practically at the door, and Solas fell out of sight as she was swallowed up by them.  
  
She was at least thoroughly prepared for the first meeting, which consisted mostly of airing all the grievances everyone had. Stuck at a table in between Vivienne's veiled insults and Fiona's high-minded indignation, Evelyn found herself thinking more about  _working through frustrations_  than the people frustrating her.  
  
It must have shown, because at one point, as the virulent arguing reached a pitch, Vivienne turned towards Evelyn and asked, with the utmost saccharine concern, whether she was “paying attention, darling?”.  
  
Evelyn glanced at the papers before her, dismissed them, and decided to get to the point.  
  
“I get the gist,” she said. “The Circle complains about the College poaching their mages, College complains about Circle not allowing mages to migrate. Here the Inquisition is, in the middle. Like all those poor mages.”  
  
She gestured amply to take in the whole room, Vivienne, Fiona and their respective hangers-on, at least half a dozen mages apiece, whose only purpose seemed to be to murmur disapprovingly and throw the other side murderous glares.  
  
“Ah, as delicate an observation as only you might make,” Vivienne said, with a fondness that Evelyn suspected was genuine.  
  
“The thing, Grand Enchanters,” Evelyn continued, “is that I personally have no stake in who goes where, only in this conflict being resolved. You brought here your little lists of people you insist were coerced in joining one side or the other, and personally, I find that quite concerning. I do not like the sound of the word 'coerced', you see.”  
  
“Yes, Inquisitor,” Fiona started, perhaps under the impression that the Inquisitor was taking her side, and Evelyn silenced her with a gesture.  
  
“I'm going to take them into Inquisition custody,” she said, pointing to the lists of names.  
  
A stunned silence fell over the room. The air turned frosty. Fiona looked shocked, whereas Vivienne merely assessing. Evelyn heard one of the Inquisition diplomats beside her inhaling sharply, and hoped the poor soul wasn't having a heart attack at the sudden change in plans.  
  
“Your Worship?” Fiona croaked.  
  
“If you can't share,” Evelyn said, steepling her fingers as her tone turned low and dangerous, “I'm taking your toys away. I am sure these fine mages would do great work for the Inquisition, and you are both familiar with the amenities we can provide them with at Skyhold. We recently renovated a whole new tower! It's turning out quite cozy. Shall I have rooms prepared for the mages?”  
  
The negotiations took a completely different tenor after that, even when the discussion moved on to other points. They managed to adjourn before dinner, something which did not seem likely when they started.  
  
Still invigorated by the progress made, Evelyn decided to search for Solas.  
She saw him the moment she entered the library, in a corner, surrounded by three apprentices who seemed to be hanging on his every word. She couldn't hear from this far away what they were discussing, but Solas was casually thumbing through a tome. His posture was the same as it had been in Haven during the first weeks when they did not know each other well, when Evelyn was still trying to get a feel for him by asking him about his journeys.   
  
There was something more confident in his manner now, more effortlessly awe-inspiring. He gestured like an instructor going through a lecture. The apprentices deferred to him instinctively, and Evelyn couldn't help notice that Solas did enjoy being the center of attention thus.  
  
Evelyn walked up behind the apprentices, and listened quietly. He saw her, his eyes locking with hers for a moment, but did not interrupt his story. He was telling the apprentices about ruins he'd dreamt in. This was not her first time hearing that particular tale, but she did enjoy listening to him speak.  
  
And, of course, right as he finished, he greeted her.  
  
“I hope the talks have gone well, Inquisitor.”  
  
The apprentices flinched, casting Evelyn awed looks.  
  
“As well as anything,” she replied, before turning to the three apprentices. Not one of them looked over the age of sixteen, and they nervously muttered greetings before dispersing.  
  
“A pity, they were quite the responsive audience,” Solas said.  
  
“You do realize,” Evelyn said, “that if after this they decide to go off and live in the woods, I'm going to be the one getting skinned by Vivienne.”  
  
“Mm. They did seem impressionable, didn't they?” he replied, sounding much too pleased.  
  
Evelyn made a sound of disgust and took the book from Solas's hands, inspecting the title. It was a treatise on dwarven architecture.  
  
She looked around, assessing the placement of the shelves, the angles of doorways and hanging drapes. It was a very well-appointed library, the décor displaying Vivienne's touch.   
  
Evelyn replaced the book on the shelf before pushing Solas backwards in a shadowed corner. As his back came up against the wall, she pressed her body into his and kissed him hotly.  
  
To his credit, he didn't miss a step, bringing his arms around her, responding to her kiss in kind. One of his hands even slipped from the small of her back lower, and she sighed in his mouth, wanting to be the one pressed against the wall, robe hitched up as he drove into her. The brief flash of fantasy made her  _want_  intensely for a moment, but it was gone just as quickly as it appeared, and reality asserted itself more solidly than ever before.  
  
She broke off the kiss, almost startled, and glanced behind her, over her shoulder. Nobody had seen them.  
  
This was not Ostwick, there were no templars roaming, and the choice wasn't between desperate illicit couplings in filthy crannies or nothing at all. Whatever appeal this sort of thing used to have, she could no longer grasp it. She felt pathetic for trying, disgusted at the thought of getting caught, confused by the unfamiliarity of what had once been a familiar situation.  
  
Solas had concern on his face, and she could only imagine what she looked like in that moment.  
  
“I'm sorry,” she said nonsensically, hiding her face in the crook of his neck.  
  
He held her more gently, running a soothing hand through her hair.  
  
“What do you have to apologize for?” he asked.  
  
“I don't know,” she said, and then again, “I'm sorry.”

* * *

The quarters she was given were nothing short of lavish, as was appropriate of a Circle as ostensibly Orlesian and steeped in the Game as Montsimmard's. The bed alone was about the size of Evelyn's old room at the Circle in Ostwick, and even apart from the rich furnishings, it had an actual lock on the door and a balcony looking out into the city.  
  
It was raining, and Evelyn had left the balcony door open. She sat sprawled on a fainting couch in front of the fireplace, listening to the hiss of rain and the crackle of the fire in counterpoint. On a table, dinner was cooling, mostly untouched.  
  
Though her embarrassment had abated somewhat, she still couldn't quite look Solas in the eye. She was afraid if she did, she might get the urge to try and explain, which she was certain she couldn't do. She had no idea herself what had happened.  
  
Solas didn't ask. He sat in silence on the edge of her fainting couch, staring into the fire. Evelyn studied his profile, and thought, like trying out a new spell,  _Fen'Harel_.  
  
“Tell me something,” she said, and Solas stirred from his stillness to look at her.  
  
“What would you like me to tell you?” he asked, as her silence dragged on.  
  
“Something,” she said, shrugging, and sitting up straighter against the backrest, “that you didn't 'learn in the Fade'. Something true.”  
  
He cocked his head, smiling at her.  
  
“Any particular requests?” he said, his indulgent tone at odds with the alertness in his eyes.  
  
“What did you hope to achieve with your rebellion?”  
  
He didn't flinch, exactly, but Evelyn saw the shadow passing over his face, and immediately regretted the question. If she asked at all, it should have been something she worked her way up to, at the very least giving him time to see it coming.  
  
“That was callous of me, I apologize.”  
  
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “The truth is... When Mythal was killed, I could scarcely see beyond my rage. I would have taken Elvhenan apart brick by brick with my bare hands to punish those who had betrayed her.”  
  
Evelyn raised an eyebrow at this.  
  
“She was my dearest friend,” he explained.  
  
“'Was'? According to Flemeth, Mythal isn't quite so dead,” Evelyn said.  
  
He seemed unfathomably sad, and delayed for a few moments before answering.  
  
“I didn't know that at the time,” he said. “Or, rather, I didn't stop to think it. In her death, I saw the loss of not only a friend, but a protector, a leader, a... beacon of hope. Out of all of us, she was least deserving of betrayal, and though I was not sure who had struck the blow, I held them all responsible.”  
  
With pain twisting in his face, he smoothed a hand over Evelyn's cheek, as if to draw strength from the contact.  
  
“They were selfish, avid for power, brutal and indifferent to the suffering of the People,” he said.  
  
She slowly raised her hand to curl her fingers around his wrist.  
  
“And you wanted to make them pay?” she said.  
  
“Yes!” he admitted with feeling. “Yes, I did!”  
  
“So you did it because wanted revenge,” she said.  
  
He tried to pull back his hand, but her fingers tightened, and she did not let him retreat. He was stricken, eyes darting around the room like a trapped animal, and she only watched him calmly. She felt the cold tips of his fingers, nervous and tense against the side of her face.  
“It wasn't about revenge,” he said, “it was about doing what I thought was necessary.”  
  
“And conveniently getting your vengeance in the process?” she asked. She did not accuse or grow angry, but she would not let him weasel out of the question either. He must have sensed as much, because she felt his muscles slacken in resignation.   
  
“The People would have been justified in rising up regardless,” he said. “The empire was built on castes, and the Elvhen pettily scrounged for as much power as they could hold over those of lower standing. The lowest of the low spent their lives leashed to masters they could not escape, penned in by laws which treated them as chattel and spells which stunted their magic. It could not be allowed to go on, and with me joining their cause, it no longer needed to. The single person who might have given them justice was dead. What else was there to lose, I foolishly asked myself at the time.”  
  
He gave a hollow bark of laughter, dark and laden with a self-loathing that chilled Evelyn.  
  
“I thought,” he said, and his voice almost cracked. He breathed in deeply and began again, “I thought of what might be accomplished if all of the Elvhen lived free, with the chance to reach their full potential. How much greater an empire might be built then? And to accomplish this, the fickle rulers who allowed the injustices to propagate needed to be removed. That is what I set out to do, whatever you believe my motives were-- whatever  _either_  of us chooses to believe my motives were.”  
  
He looked at Evelyn, uncertain, almost pleading.  
  
She sighed against his palm and kissed it before letting him go. He was motionless for a few seconds, before he turned away from her, moving nearly to the other end of the couch, hunching over and hiding his face in his hands.  
  
Evelyn shuffled until she was sitting behind him. She put her arms around his waist and leaned her head against his shoulder, careful in all her movements, and deliberate. She felt his back heave as he exhaled, but she couldn't tell if it was a sigh or a dry sob. She stayed holding him for a long time, listening to the crackle of the fire and the hiss of the rain. She wondered if he hated her now.  
  
She was startled when she felt him shift, and just as she released him he turned around, grabbed her by the shoulders and laid her down flat on her back on the couch. She blinked up at him in surprise, waiting to see what he'd do.  
  
He seemed to have composed himself, and settled over her, elbows braced on either side of her head.  
  
“I don't require you to accept my past actions,” he said, “especially those which don't pertain to you in the first place.”  
  
Brittle, he felt brittle, Evelyn thought. There was something fragile in the moment.  
  
“Okay,” she said simply.  
  
Perhaps that was not the response he expected, because now he seemed unsure, narrowing his eyes at her.  
  
“If you're having second thoughts about this relationship,” he said, softer, “if you wish to break it off, I would understand, and make no more mention of it.”  
  
“The same goes for you,” she replied.  
  
His surprise came through clearly this time, and then he visibly relaxed, tense muscles unwinding. He lowered his head to plant kisses along her jaw.  
  
“You undo me with so few words,  _vhenan_ ,” he murmured against her cheek.

She huffed a breathy laugh.  
  
“What did I even say?” she asked, tracing the leather cord of his amulet from his neck down to where she felt the weight of the wolf jaw against the side of her chest. She fiddled with it, tracing its sharp edges carefully.  
  
He sat back up on his elbows, running fingers through her hair, smoothing it back from her forehead. His eyes were soft with affection, and distantly sad as always, but he smiled as he looked down at her. The brittleness from before was gone.  
  
“The words do not matter as much as the person speaking them,” he replied.  
  
Her eyes widened, and she laughed in truth this time.  
  
“Oh, I see,” she said, and grabbing the cord of his amulet again, pulled him down into a kiss. He did not resist, melting into it, nothing but heat and hunger as he stole her breath.  
  
Her hands found purchase in his shirt, nails digging through the material, desperate to touch, grasp, hold—fingers twitching loose when she realized how hard they were pressing into his flesh, but then she inevitably forgot herself again.  
  
Evelyn was jarred out of the kiss when her heels slid off the edge of the couch, and her eyes fluttered open just as Solas pulled back. Their breaths mingled as they both panted, and Solas subtly tried to roll his shoulder. The way he'd bent down to kiss her probably did his neck muscles no favor.  
  
“Neck hurts?” she asked, running a hand over his shoulder, trying to rub it for him.  
  
“I am fine,” he said, and the tips of Evelyn's fingers tingled as she felt the slightest brush of mana—he'd cast a restorative spell, some simple healing to deal with the ache, rather than admit to it.  
  
Evelyn actually snickered. It seemed this kind of silliness wasn't something men ever outgrew.  
  
“Up,” she said, tapping his shoulder.  
  
He obediently sat up, and she followed. They sat side by side on the couch, a slight hitch of awkwardness as they looked at each other in the firelight. Then he brushed a hand over her cheek, and wrapped an arm around her waist to pull her up against his side. He feathered light kisses over the side of her face.  
  
Evelyn bent towards him like a flower towards the sun, sustained by his heat, craving it. She sighed, and though she wasn't sure why, it sounded happy even to her own ears. She felt his lips curl into a smile as he pecked the corner of her mouth, in stark contrast to the hunger from before. She only needed to move her head a fraction, and she caught his mouth in a kiss.  
  
At some point—and completely unpremeditated—one of her hands fell onto his lap, and she rubbed fingertips against the material of his leggings, learning the pattern of the material as it stretched over his thigh. When the kiss deepened, her entire palm flattened down, and the press of it no longer seemed accidental.  
  
Solas broke off and caught her hand, giving Evelyn a chastising look. She fluttered her eyelashes innocently at him. The way he smirked in response was... promising.  
  
He stood up, pulling her up after him, turning her in place. One hand on her waist, the other holding hers, and they were hip to hip, as if dancing. He turned her around, maneuvered her easily for how much she wanted to follow, and soon he was walking her backwards through the room.  
“Do you realize,  _vhenan_ ,” he crooned softly as each step he took sent her back two fumbling half-steps, “my magic lies in every part of you?”  
  
“...What?” She tried to look behind her, see where he was guiding her.   
  
They passed the open balcony door, letting in a chill as the night turned cooler, and at her shiver, Solas's magic flared, brief and incandescent around his hand, and the door snapped shut. Evelyn flinched, but Solas only continued.  
  
“There's more of it than just the mark,” he said.  
  
Evelyn could see now he was leading her to the bed, but she was still not prepared for it when the back of her legs hit the edge, and Solas gently pushed her down onto the mattress.   
  
“I could make it sing,” he said, intense even as he caught one of her calves and began unlacing her boot.  
  
“I don't understand,” she said, propped up on her elbows as she watched him.  
  
He tugged off one boot and worked on the next.  
  
“I'll show you,” he promised.  
  
The moment the second boot hit the ground, she barely had time to scoot back before he was on her, climbing onto the bed and catching her hands, pinning them over her head. She thought he would kiss her, in the same ravenous way as before, but he did not. He nuzzled her cheek, and laced their fingers together, and then she felt it.  
  
The mark flared, but it was tamped down, more like warmth than burning nerves. A thrum, starting in her palm and moving up her arm, across her shoulders, moving down her torso, all over her body. It felt pleasant, like sinking into a hot bath at the end of a cold day, but more than that, like every part of her was vibrating. Like a bell being rung. It was his magic, and he wielded it with a precision and a delicacy she couldn't even fathom.  
  
In anyone else's hands, Evelyn would have found this sort of power over her body sinister, but not when it was Solas. She trusted him implicitly for a thousand different reasons she might come up with when she was clear-headed, but in that moment, the only reason she needed was because she loved him.  
  
She closed her eyes tight and breathed slowly as the realization sunk in. It gripped her heart and made it ache with sweetness, and it had to be real, because it was unlike anything she'd felt before.  
  
“ _Vhenan?_ ” he said softly.  
  
“What does it mean?” she asked, barely above a whisper, and opened her eyes to look at him.  
  
“ _Vhenan,_ ” he sighed, trailing kisses across her cheek and over her mouth, “ _ma vhenan_. My heart.”  
  
“Oh,” she said, wonder and sweet ache making her throat seize.  
  
She rolled them over, straddling him as she sat up and looked at him. His eyes were wide, blazing as he watched her, only her, like she was the only thing that mattered in the world.  
  
“You have mine too,” she said, before surging down against him and kissing him with purpose.

* * *

He ran his hands over her body, and true to his word, he made it sing. It was comfort at first, then torment when he would not go any further. It became comfort again when she accepted he wouldn't.  
  
“Not here,” he said, holding her against his chest, tracing the dip of her spine through clothes he refused to let her shed.  
  
“Why not?” she asked.  
  
“Have you ever bedded someone outside a Circle?”  
  
“What has that to do with anything?” she said instead of 'no, never'.  
  
“Then no. Not here,” he repeated. “Not the first time,” he added in a lower voice.  
  
She understood, or rather, knew she'd understand in the morning, and so she let him hold her, spend the night in her bed without touching her the way she wanted. It was still worthwhile, still an experience she wouldn't trade for anything.  
  
As she fell asleep, he whispered something to her in Elven. She didn't know the words, but she understood.


	7. Chapter 7

Evelyn awoke feeling overheated and stifled, and it took her a few moments to figure out it was because she'd been sleeping in her clothes instead of a shift. She was additionally thrown by the fact that the pillow smelled unfamiliar, and that she did not recognize the overembellished armoire next to the wall.  
  
She glared at the armoire for a few moments more, so groggy from sleep that she felt justified in her hostility towards it, and then turned on her other side. The last remnants of sleep were chased off abruptly as her eyes fell on Solas, sitting in an armchair and looking at her. He was smiling fondly.  
  
“Good morning,” he said.  
  
Evelyn groused something similar in return. She cleared her throat.  
  
“Have you been awake long?” she asked.  
  
“A while,” he said lightly.  
  
She blinked and sat up slowly.  
  
“Do I snore or something?” she asked.  
  
“No,” he replied, and his smile turned into something altogether more amused. “However, you do kick in your sleep.”  
  
Evelyn ran a hand over her face, and ended up pinching the bridge of her nose.  
  
“I kicked you,” she surmised.  
  
“I'm sure I'll recover,” Solas replied indulgently.  
  
He rose from his seat and walked over to Evelyn, gently tugging her hand from her face and leaning down to kiss her cheek.  
  
“You have a full day ahead of you,” he said as she looked up at him. “You should prepare for it.”  
  
He straightened up and turned for the door.  
  
“You're going?” Evelyn blurted out.  
  
“I only wanted to see your eyes before I left,” he replied, soft and gentle, but his voice still carried.  
  
Then he was gone, slipping out through the door so quietly Evelyn didn't even hear the lock click. She touched her heated cheek, so full of wonder and simmering happiness that she felt silly for it.

* * *

Her day was, indeed, full. Having hashed out how to deal with mages, Fiona and Vivienne had moved on to arguing over books and magical artifacts salvaged from the fallen Circles.   
  
The books, at least, could be copied and shared between the Circle and the College, and Evelyn volunteered the services of Inquisition scribes for free, as long as the Inquisition library also got copies of the tomes. The artifacts proved more of a contentious issue.  
  
After a long day of hashing out an elaborate set of agreements, none of which were acceptable to different parties for various reasons, Evelyn returned to her guest quarters to find a bath drawn and dinner waiting for her. The headache pounding in her ears abated once she ate and had a long soak, and with impeccable timing, just as she was about to go seek out Solas, he appeared at her door all by himself.  
  
“Your day  _has_  to have been more pleasant than mine,” she said.  
  
He flashed her a smile.  
  
“The library was quite diverting,” he agreed, “and I also had a very satisfying conversation with a few of the Senior Enchanters.”  
  
“Working your way up through the ranks, I see,” Evelyn grinned. “I hope you didn't scandalize them too badly.”  
  
“I prefer to think I've shaken them from their complacency,” he said, matching her grin.

He brought with him from the library a book, a treatise on early Orlesian art styles with etchings of representative works. The subject matter surprised Evelyn at first, until Solas began telling her of spirits of inspiration, and the way they were drawn to touching the minds of artists and stoking their passion.  
  
They ended up on the fainting couch in front of the fire, Evelyn sitting between his legs, back against his chest, the book open before them. Solas's hands skimmed across the pages, revealed the meaning of symbols whose significance had long since been lost to time, the subtle signs which revealed to Solas which spirit had been an artist's muse, secret connections not even the artists themselves would have guessed.  
  
Evelyn listened, feeling the rumble of his voice against her back, the tickle of his breath against her neck, the caress of his fingers when he touched her hand with casual affection. And perhaps her world had been tilted off its axis one too many times over the years, but she knew better than to trust in permanence. This too would slip away from her one day, and it was only a matter of when.  
  
He asked her a question, and she didn't even realize it until he squeezed her hand to get her attention.  
  
“ _Vhenan_?” His voice was pitched low, his lips warm against the shell of her ear.  
  
She flinched.  
  
“Lost in thought?” he asked.  
  
“I-- I was, I think-- I just-- how long are you staying?”  
  
He fell silent. He knew what she meant. He closed the book, dropped it aside on the floor, and he crossed his arms over her chest, pulling her tightly against him. The fact that he did not reply for a very long time made her heart sink, but she waited.  
  
“I don't know,” he said, and for what it was worth he did sound genuinely sorrowful. She sighed, going limp against him. “When I left, I didn't think I would ever have the chance to return to you and be greeted as a friend.”  
  
“Because of whatever it was you planned to do?” she asked.  
  
The silence that followed was considerably more awkward. He probably hadn't counted on her bringing that up.  
  
“We might have been enemies,” he said quietly. “As things stand, I... it's still a thought that haunts me.”  
  
She looked over her shoulder at his face.  
  
“You mean because you still think it's a possibility?” she asked.  
  
He hesitated for too long, eyes flitting away to avoid her gaze.  
  
“Solas!”   
  
“I don't know the future, Inquisitor,” he said. “But I know my duty, just as you know yours. I know we might have to commit to courses of actions from which neither of us could sway.” He cupped her cheek, frowning as he studied her face, as if trying to commit it to memory. “It was selfish of me to pursue this,” he confessed, barely above a whisper. “I shouldn't have indulged at your expense.”  
  
“Oh, stop it,” she said, huffing in exasperation.   
  
“I'm sorry, am I being an 'overdramatic ass' again?” he asked. A smile flickered on his face, gone again in a split second. “Yet what I say is still true.”  
  
She turned around, kneeling between his legs and taking his face into her hands.  
  
“Do you know what a self-fulfilling prophecy is?” she asked.  
  
He was taken aback by her question, but after a few moments, he nodded, slowly.  
  
“So stop it,” she said. “Enjoy this while it lasts. Every relationship has the potential to end in disaster, but most people don't dwell on it from the start.”  
She leaned in to kiss him, to smother all the foolish thoughts from his head with her lips, but he inhaled shakily and pulled back just a fraction, and she stopped herself, keeping still as she looked into his eyes.  
  
“Then you're not afraid,” he said, “that you might lose yourself to it? That love will prove a distraction from your goals? That your feeling for me will make you falter at a crucial point?”  
  
“Is... that what  _you're_  afraid of?” she said.  
  
“Are you not?” he asked again, gripping her forearms, keeping her in place.  
  
That was not a fear she would have even imagined until then, but in that moment, she felt it bloom in her chest, heavy and cold. She couldn't find a solution to a problem which did not yet exist, least of all when she had no idea what form that problem would take once it did.   
  
She sighed and leaned her forehead against his.  
  
She tried to imagine having to choose between him and the Inquisition, and though it twisted at something raw and painful inside her, she knew she'd have to put the well-being of the people depending on her first. She'd have to tear out her own heart to do it, but she would. That he would do the same was... not a comfort, but only fair.  
  
No, she wouldn't let it get to that point, not for either of them.  
  
“You think if you told me what you wanted to accomplish, I wouldn't help you?” she asked.  
  
“I know you would,” he whispered, pained. “But that way lies misery, and I won't have you suffer on my behalf.”  
  
She held his gaze for a few seconds, before sighing and wrapping her arms around his neck, holding him tightly.  
  
He held her as well, in a desperate embrace that squeezed the air out of her lungs.  
  
“It's not your decision alone,” she said against his ear, “and if you think it is, I'll remind you that since returning, you've confessed to more disastrous mistakes than I could possibly make in my short lifetime. It's long past time you had a second opinion.”  
  
“ _Vhenan_ ,” he said, voice plaintive.  
  
“A second  _opinion_ , Solas. I'm not going to force you to do things my way. But I'll help you, for as long as you allow it.”  
  
He sighed, and she felt him relax by degrees.  
  
“I shouldn't allow you to be part of this at all,” he said.  
  
“You don't get to choose for me how I live my life, Solas.”  
  
Her tone brooked no argument, and he finally sighed, removing her arms from around his neck and pulling her down. She fell from her kneeling position, crumpling against his chest ungracefully. She was also fairly sure she accidentally elbowed him in the ribs, but he wound a hand in her hair, and peppered her face with kisses. He stopped only to tilt her head back and catch her eye.  
  
“We're alone,  _vhenan_. Say my name.”  
  
When he asked her with such heat, she could only oblige.  
  
“Fen'Harel,” she said, the name still strange to her. “Fen'Harel,” she let it roll over her tongue again, low and soft like a secret between them.  
  
He rumbled in approval.  
  
“Do you accept my help, or not?” she asked.  
  
“When we get back to Skyhold,” he said, a hand slipping over her waist to trace the curve of her hip. “We'll discuss... everything relevant.”  
  
“I'll hold you to that,” she said. “And your other promise as well, Fen'Harel.”  
  
“I expect as much,” he said, and his hand left her hip to slip under her shirt, and tease the naked skin it found there.

* * *

Evelyn's stay at Montsimmard continued for several more days. During the day, negotiations proceeded more smoothly, both Vivienne and Fiona too consumed with the minutia of diplomacy to keep up their sniping.   
  
In the evenings, Solas always found his way to her room.  
  
With anyone else, Evelyn would have suspected that she was being wound up. He still refused her sex, but never kept his hands off her. She'd never had someone who touched her only because they could, only because it brought them pleasure to do so, instead of merely as foreplay.  
  
And that, perhaps, was it. Her dalliances at the Circle had all been rather less about the people she'd had them with, and more brought on by boredom, a need for release, or petty rebellion against the prudish Templars who would forbid such behavior. Though she'd certainly felt attracted to most of her sexual partners, it had been a convergence of mood and opportunity that brought them together, and not any depth of feeling.  
  
Perhaps to prove the point, she hadn't had as much of an interest in sex after the Conclave. She found other things to keep her busy, or worried, or simply entertained, and other than the occasional late night urge, which she satisfied by herself, her love life was starkly bare. And that had not bothered her much.  
  
Solas was a complete departure from anything she'd experienced previously. She  _wanted_  him. Not simply to sleep with—though, Maker knew, she wanted him in that way too, more sharply than she'd ever wanted anyone—but in everything else. She liked his eyes on her, and his smile, and his kisses, not because these things led up to something, but as ends in themselves. She loved his hands on her, and the feel of him under her palms. And she enjoyed his company, and simply talking to him.  
  
So where she'd expected to feel tension and frustration, annoyance at being denied, she felt, instead, a strange calmness when he held her down and kissed her breathless.  
  
She laughed against his lips.  
  
“Something amusing,  _vhenan_?” he asked, playing at serious.  
  
“Nothing. I love you,” she said. “That's all.”  
  
“Well, if that's  _all_ ,” he said. He sounded so smugly pleased by it, as he brushed a thumb over her lips. From there he traced a path over her chin, down her neck and, slowly, over one breast, before he cupped it firmly.  
  
Evelyn whined, sharp and needy, and he swallowed the sound as he kissed her. She was being wound up, alright. But she enjoyed it.

* * *

The negotiations concluded about as well as they could have, all things considered. Evelyn doubted this would be the last time the Circle and the College clashed, but at least it would not be out of a lack of intervention on the Inquisition's part.  
  
Evelyn stayed for a day more after Fiona and her entourage departed. The list of books to be transcribed by the Inquisition was long, and would be broken down in smaller, more manageable loads, as to not deprive the Montsimmard Circle library of too much of its material.  
  
Solas had helped compile the first list of volumes, along with one of the Inquisition mages. Evelyn hadn't asked him to, but he assigned himself to the task, and the Inquisition mages had learned to defer to him—at first because they knew him to be part of the Inquisitor's inner circle, and later because they came to respect his expertise.  
  
“Are you researching something in particular?” Evelyn asked as she looked over the list. She knew Solas had spent most of his time in the library, but was not aware he had been seeking anything in particular.  
  
“Several matters have caught my interest, nothing concrete,” he said. After a moment, he amended with a smile, “But it would help my work if you prioritized some of these titles, yes.”  
  
She didn't ask, but acquiesced to his requests.

The other thing was, now that the negotiations were over, Vivienne insisted she and Evelyn catch up. It would have been a bit unseemly to fraternize with the Inquisitor while she was acting as mediator, but after the fact, Evelyn found herself being invited up to Vivienne's quarters, which were, of course, every bit as decadent as Evelyn expected.   
  
They were served some fashionable new hot beverage while they sat in plush, silk-draped armchairs. Evelyn was still trying to form an opinion on the beverage—dark and made from some kind of roasted grain—when Vivienne veered sharply from small talk into gossip.  
  
“I must say, my dear, you've made a very odd choice for a lover's retreat,” she said. “While you may not wish the entirety of Skyhold to know about how you conduct your private affairs, I can't imagine letting all of Montsimmard's Circle know the same was what you intended.”  
  
Evelyn paused with the cup at her mouth.  
  
Yes, of course, she thought ruefully.  _Orlesians_. Every lurid scrap of information was a delicious treat for aspiring players of the Game.  
  
“Have no fear,” Vivienne said, before serenely sipping from her own cup. “I have impressed the importance of holding one's tongue upon the more troublesome elements.”  
  
“Thank you, Madame Vivienne,” Evelyn said, “but I wouldn't have taken Solas along if I had any  _affair_  to keep private in the first place.” Which she hadn't had at the time she left Skyhold, making her statement technically true.  
  
Vivienne was unimpressed.  
  
“My dear,” she said, “as discreet as you've been throughout the day, he  _has_  spent every night you've been here in your quarters. And quite frankly, as distasteful as I find the thought of you passing time with that... man, I would still find it preferable to whatever  _else_  some half-wild apostate might be showing you under the cover of darkness.”  
  
By the piercing look Vivienne was giving Evelyn, it was clear she thought Solas was teaching her to commune with demons or something equally unsavory.  
  
“But Madame Vivienne,” Evelyn said, voice shaking with mirth, “what if both are the case?”  
  
Vivienne looked up to the heavens, as if beseeching the Maker for strength.  
  
“Then you will most likely be the death of me,” she said with finality.  
  
Evelyn grinned.

* * *

There were few things Evelyn found more comforting than seeing Skyhold's towers come into view over the peaks.   
  
It was nearly evening when they finally arrived in Skyhold proper, and immediately Evelyn was accosted by Josephine with some urgent issue which had come up during her absence. Solas excused himself and went to attend to the matter of the Montsimmard books, while Evelyn attended to whatever hysterical noble was pitching a fit in Josephine's office.  
  
That night, Evelyn crawled into bed exhausted, and as she settled herself, she realized she missed Solas. He'd been a comforting presence in her bed the past week or so, and now she wondered how she'd ever fall asleep without his fingers running through her hair, or his warmth at her back.  
  
She hugged a pillow to her chest, curling around it, and sighed. In the end, she needn't have worried; she was so tired that sleep soon overtook her, and Solas was already waiting in the Fade for her.

* * *

Skyhold was particularly vivid in dreams that night, every brick of it in sharp focus.  
  
“The first time I walked through the gate,” she was saying, “and I stepped into the courtyard, it felt as if I'd done it a thousand times before. Like I was returning home.”  
  
Solas hummed thoughtfully, watching her with his hands clasped behind his back. He was paying attention to her words, but his eyes lingered on her neck.  
  
Evelyn leaned back against the wall.  
  
“Do you think,” she said, “that one day I'll walk through the gate, and feel a sense of wonder, as if arriving for the first time?”  
  
A smile spread over Solas's face, and he ambled closer to her, just a breath away, but not touching her.  
  
“That is a good question,” he said. “The more you learn about the magic of this place, the more obvious the answer will become.”  
  
“Is that your way of saying 'wait and see'?” she asked.  
  
“It's my way of saying 'nothing is ever so simple',” he replied, as his gaze lingered on her lips.  
  
She narrowed her eyes at him.  
  
“Well, then,” she said, and pushed off the wall, walking away with a deliberate sway to her hips.  
  
She felt him follow, and flashed a grin over her shoulder before ducking into a side corridor. Walls shifted, closing behind her, but as much as she'd learned to influence the Fade, she knew he was much more practiced at it. He would find her quickly. Escaping him wasn't the point, so much as making him work for it.  
  
She was down a flight of stairs and around a corner quickly. She broke into a run, her footsteps as loud as her peals of laughter. Out through a door, sliding down a flight of stairs, and she was in the garden, feeling the impression of leaves brush over her skin as she cut through.   
  
She felt Solas on her heels, his intent pursuit of her like the humid breath of a wild beast prickling along the back of her neck. He was getting closer,  _closer, closer, closer_ , and with each footfall Evelyn felt sharp excitement shoot through her veins. She wanted him to catch her, but she liked the chase too much to let him.  
  
She reached a door, but just as her hand closed around the handle, from the corner of her eye, she glimpsed a shifting black shape—fangs bared, too many eyes—and then Solas stumbling into her just as she turned her head, pushing her against the door, sending both of them crashing through.

It didn't hurt to hit the ground, because neither of them willed it, but Solas's kiss was hard and bruising. The spike of terror at whatever she'd seen melted into a sharp arousal, her heart pounding just as hard, if for a different reason.  
  
Her legs went up around his hips, pulling him as close as she could, and he responded by bucking into her, pressing against her core in a tantalizing imitation of what she really wanted. She let out a garbled sound, both pleased and unsatisfied.  
  
He broke off the kiss suddenly, and there was something ferocious in his face for the split second after he did. Then his expression smoothed over, and he disentangled himself from her, rising up. Evelyn was left on the floor, wide-eyed and panting and unbearably aroused.  
  
“Where are you-- what-- Solas!” She sounded so dismayed that he chuckled.  
  
“Calling out the wrong name again,  _vhenan_ ,” he chided, and grabbed her hand to pull her up. “But if that pleased you,” he continued, voice dropping into something dark and velvety, “perhaps next time you should lead me on a longer chase.”  
  
Evelyn huffed, because if she tried saying anything, she suspected it would not come out very coherent. She let him help her up to her feet, however, and brushed herself off, despite not being covered in any dust. But the motion gave her the time to think of how to phrase the next question.  
  
“I feel as though there are still some things about yourself you're hiding, Fen'Harel,” she said eventually.  
  
“Probably so,” he replied neutrally.  
  
He gestured towards the room, and Evelyn turned to see the eluvian. This was the same room Morrigan had used to store it.  
  
Evelyn approached, surprised by how sharp and clear the eluvian's memory was. The glass did not reflect her image, however. The closer they got, the darker the mirror's reflections seemed to her. When she looked closely, there was something black and indistinct moving beyond the glass.  
  
Solas trailed behind her a few steps, but did not intrude on her exploration. She placed a hand against the glass, leaned close to look deep into it. Black shape, shifting shadows. It didn't mean anything to her until she saw the eyes, three pairs, red and blinking open to stare at her. It was unnerving, being on the receiving end of that stare, but she didn't feel threatened. If anything, there was something familiar about it. She stood in place, trying to make out more of the shape. A head, ears, lines in a familiar configuration. A wolf?  
  
The sudden flash of the wisps breaking free of the glass startled her, and she took two steps back.   
  
The wisps hovered in the air for a few moments, and Evelyn expected them to come to her, as wisps always tended to do. The Anchor made her shine brighter than other mages, and it attracted sympathetic magic such as this.  
  
But to Evelyn's surprise, the wisps of light shot past her with a high-pitched whine, and headed for Solas, flickering out as they were absorbed into his mana.  
  
Evelyn looked back at the eluvian, and then to Solas again. Six eyes or two, there was the same weight to the gaze. He waited, watched her closely, the man and the mirror image both. This was one of the riddles of the Fade, where 'real' was a matter of perspective, of interpretation, of symbolism.  
  
She turned back towards the eluvian and touched the glass again. It was warm, alive, and the wolf tilted his head at her, curiously peering at her in turn.  
  
“I don't actually understand,” she said.  
  
His hands fell on her shoulders, and he squeezed, comforting.  
  
“Better to admit it than to assume you know when you do not,” he spoke softly into her ear.  
  
She turned her head to glance at him, wondering if, once again, she'd see the wolf from the corner of her eye. She didn't, but instead he nuzzled her cheek affectionately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In other news, a talented reader made this Solas/Trevelyan tarot card edit: http://josephgoda.tumblr.com/post/111410645782/re-creation-of-fast-edit-from-here-holy-hell


	8. Chapter 8

Solas remained elusive the next day, and Evelyn would have almost thought he was avoiding her, if not for the fact that he instead seemed to be keeping one step ahead of her.  
  
It wasn't exactly a well-kept secret that after returning to Skyhold, the Inquisitor would usually spend the next day making the rounds, checking in with people and catching up with the latest happenings. It was, in fact, something most people seemed to expect of her now, and something they'd grown used to accommodating, if no outright using to their advantage.  
  
She dropped in on Josephine first thing in the morning, if for no other reason than to be appraised of whatever nobility was currently underfoot. Josephine warned her of a particularly cantankerous bann, before off-handedly mentioning that Solas had passed through her office just earlier.  
  
Evelyn thought nothing much of it; Solas would sometimes drop hints or bring certain issues to Josephine's attention, and the ambassador had learned it was always worth following through on them. If anything, Evelyn had a moment's personal amusement, now that she knew truly how vast was the political experience that Solas drew from.  
  
She strode through the rotunda on the way to see Leliana, but Solas was not present, so she did not linger.   
  
She did stop to have a chat with Dorian, who grinned at her and pretended to be hurt that she'd taken Solas along to Montsimmard and its delicious library, but not him. He and Solas had spent the day before and part of the morning going through the books from Montsimmard, but Dorian still wished he'd seen the full collection.  
  
“Ah, but then again, who am I to deprive you of the opportunity to frolic with elves in the woods?” he added at the end, his grin widening.  
  
Heat rose to Evelyn's face, as she recalled the outpost commander who gave her the same look when she returned from closing the rift. Gossip had evidently had time to make its way back to Skyhold.  
  
“That's alright, I can get my exercise elsewhere,” she replied.  
  
“I can imagine,” Dorian said flatly, and she swatted at him, bursting into laughter.  
  
Leliana was less enthused. She slipped Evelyn a package filled with papers.  
  
“We reached out to scholars on elven lore,” Leliana said. “This is all the information we gathered on Fen'Harel, inaccurate and incomplete as it may be. But perhaps there is something of value in there, yes?”  
  
Evelyn rather suspected that what Leliana considered of value was knowledge of some weakness, some character flaw she might be able to exploit against Solas. Evelyn had the package sent to her quarters anyway, if only to appease Leliana.

When Evelyn passed through the rotunda again, she paused to look at the wall. The mural was finished, with some additions which had not been obvious in the rough sketch. In the background of the two creatures—one dead, and the other looming over it—was the elegantly arched shape suggesting an eluvian, jagged and broken inside its frame, blackened wisps hovering around it.  
  
There was something ominous about the image. It felt less like the end of a story and more like a dire warning of things to come. As with most things involving Solas, Evelyn suspected it was yet another puzzle piece she wouldn't be able to fit until she looked back on it.  
  
But she could  _ask_  now, couldn't she?  
  
She  _would_  ask. As soon as she found him.  
  
Naturally, then, she did not come across him for the rest of the day. She dropped in at the mage tower just after he'd already departed, and by the time she got to the tavern, she found Iron Bull in a shadowed corner, rearranging pieces on a chessboard. She didn't ask, but she knew that chessboard had only cropped up in the tavern after Solas's return.  
  
She fully expected to catch up to Solas when she went to visit Cole—they could spend hours immersed in their own strange conversations about the Fade—but Cole was sitting with his feet dangling over the tavern as he looked down on it, and he was alone. Evelyn sat down next to him.  
  
“He apologized for making me forget,” Cole informed Evelyn. “I didn't mind until I remembered.”  
  
Cole looked at her, his expression more discerning than preternaturally feverish, now that he was closer to human.  
  
“He says it's a hurt I can't help,” Cole said. “Perhaps you're the one meant to.”  
  
“Do you think so?”  
  
“You'll try anyway,” he shrugged. “You should. It sits on the tip of his tongue sometimes, a deluge of truth, burning, blistering, bile-tasting, but never spoken for fear it would swallow everyone who heard.”  
  
“Would it really?” she asked, looking away and down. The last stray notes of a song drifted up, and then raucous laughter as the music died.  
  
“He thinks so,” Cole said. “But he can be wrong, too.”  
  
She knew that, but it still hung heavy to hear it spoken by someone else.

* * *

Evelyn went about her day, never once catching a glimpse of Solas. She had no idea if she was frustrated or amused by his antics, but she did spend the better part of the day thinking about him, so perhaps that was the goal.  
  
It was already early evening when she finished a meeting in the war room, and having wrapped up everything for the day, she retired to her quarters.   
  
After dinner and a bath, she scanned the bookshelves behind her desk for some leisurely reading material.   
  
Most of the books were reference material, dry tomes describing the geography or history or political situation of some area. Useful stuff for when she needed to understand the context of a report or if she had to verify some information before writing an important letter. But she was sure she had some trashy romance serials stowed away between the weightier volumes.  
  
Her fingers skimmed along the length of a shelf, her wandering mind not really taking in the titles, and she was so absorbed in daydreaming about nothing in particular, that she didn't even sense anyone entering the room.  
  
And so, when she felt her hip being grasped from behind, she squeaked in surprise and produced a mind blast.  
  
It was not a terribly strong one, not as it would have been if she'd had time to prepare it, but in the wake of its inverted pop of sound, she heard a muffled grunt and a thud.  
  
She whipped around to see Solas leaning back against her desk, looking just as startled as her.  
  
“Maker, you scared me!” Evelyn said. She wore only a dressing gown over a shift, and she pulled it closed tight as she crossed her arms, more out of embarrassment than modesty. “I'm so sorry. Are you alright?”  
  
“Fine,” he said, stepping away from the desk and closer to her. “I should be the one to apologize. I thought you heard me approach.”  
  
She probably would have, if she'd been paying attention. She winced, leaning back against the bookshelves.  
  
“My mind was elsewhere,” she admitted.  
  
He quirked a smile at her, stepping into her space, placing his hands against the shelves on either side of her hips. Evelyn breathed in slowly, her back straightening, her head tilting back to reveal the lines of her neck that he so often admired—not a conscious decision, merely her body responding to his proximity.  
  
“Anywhere interesting?” he asked.  
  
She uncrossed her arms, letting the dressing gown fall open again.  
  
“Not as interesting as right here,” she said.  
  
His eyes raked over her form, openly appreciative in a way that made her skin tingle. She stood still under his scrutiny, aware of how thin her shift was, and of his hands close enough to touch her but not doing so. She wondered if he would have her right there against the shelves and had to bite down a moan at the thought.  
  
Instead, he gravitated closer, their bodies so near each other that she could feel his heat even through his clothes. He touched her hips—lightly, so light she barely felt it—and his cheek brushed against hers as he leaned over, bringing his lips to her ear.  
  
“I trust you've had a productive day?” he asked incongruously.  
  
She stiffened in indignation. The strange runaround he'd given her all day had apparently been on purpose.  
  
“You ass,” she laughed, putting a hand against his chest and pushing him back just enough to see his face. “What were you playing at?”  
  
He smirked at her, and taking her by the wrist and around the waist, he guided her away from the shelves until he had her leaning against her desk, palms flat against its surface. She was only half bent over it, but the position was a suggestive one. She gasped sharply as he molded himself against her back, a hand splayed over her belly. She could feel the weight of the wolf jaw amulet against her back, wolf teeth grazing her spine in a distant suggestion of something more dangerous.  
  
“Is that really what concerns you at the moment?” he asked, brushing her hair aside so he could trail hot kisses against the back of her neck.  
  
Evelyn was distracted by his ministrations only for the space of several seconds. Her body was strung taut with anticipation, but she concentrated on the cool wood of the desk, and quickly regained her focus.

“Tell me,” she said, firm enough that he knew she actually expected an answer.  
  
Solas paused, and she felt a twinge of satisfaction at his panting breaths over her nape.  
  
“Would it surprise you to know,” he said, “that I've been observing you for a long time?”  
  
“Have you, now?”  
  
He smoothed a hand over her thigh, and she felt his fingers working as they bunched up the fabric of her shift slowly, bringing up the hem.  
  
“You were a puzzle to me,” he said.  
  
“ _I_  was--?” she huffed incredulously, but the words died as his fingers finally slipped under the shift and met naked skin.  
  
“You were,” Solas continued, unruffled. He traced idle patterns over her thigh as he talked. “I wondered what you might do once named Inquisitor. You had a considerable amount of influence as Herald, even if it made you uneasy. But Skyhold was when you finally came into your full power, and realized the true extent of the Inquisition's reach. I know the temptations of wielding such authority over other people.”  
  
She turned her head, trying to look at him over her shoulder—he was forever at her back, close but out of her grasp, and it probably meant something, this habit of his.  
  
He stroked her inner thigh more firmly then, just once, making her shudder and look forward again.  
  
“So I watched you,” he said.  
  
“Liked what you saw?” she asked, voice strained.  
  
He chuckled, and she felt it more than heard it.  
  
“Always,  _vhenan_ ,” Solas murmured.  
  
He removed his hand from her thigh, letting the hem fall back down to her knees, and she made a strangled sound of protest. He plucked at her dressing gown instead, and she shrugged it off. It slipped off her bare shoulders to pool on the floor, and when he turned her around, she felt more exposed than could be accounted for by the loss of the silky garment.  
  
He cradled the back of her head and pulled her into a fevered kiss. She met him with just as much heat, and she pressed her hips against his, groaning in satisfaction when she felt his hardness.  
  
“Bed?” she asked, pulling away from the kiss only for the fleeting moment it took to form the word. She was more eager for him than ever, and she did not feel capable of any more delays.  
  
He nodded, perhaps he also whispered  _yes_  and she missed it for how delighted she was. But she grabbed his hand, turned away even as his mouth trailed over her jaw, and she pulled him towards the bed.  
  
Excitement roiled under her skin, and the only thing to give her any pause was the fact that Solas wasn't naked yet. She stopped at the edge of the bed and looked him over once, before raising an eyebrow at his overdressed state.  
  
He laughed, but understood right away the source of her displeasure.   
  
Moving with deliberate slowness, he first grasped the jawbone amulet and pulled it over his head. He let it fall to the floor, and it rattled so loudly that it made Evelyn flinch.  
  
He moved on to his tunic next, and removed it in the same unhurried manner.  
  
“So that's how it's going to be?” she said.  
  
Solas inspected the garment in his hands.  
  
“There's no hurry,” he said, and let the shirt drop to the floor as well.  
  
If he expected her to jump him and tear his clothes off in frustration, she wouldn't give him the satisfaction. Instead, she hopped onto the bed, laying on her side to watch him with feigned disinterest.  
  
“Fine,” she said. “No hurry.” Not as long as she got what she wanted, anyway.  
  
With a wicked smile, he stripped himself of his undershirt next, pulling it off with an exaggerated languid motion which was probably calculated to rile Evelyn up. She nearly cursed him out loud, because it worked. He did not have the same lithe build as most elves, and seeing the shift of his muscles as he moved was... something else.  
  
He rolled his shoulders, casual and unconcerned, and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. He acted as if she wasn't even there, and there was an unexpected appeal in that, as if she was looking in on a private moment.  
  
But then his gaze slid back over to her, and she felt the weight of it on her. He turned towards the bed.  
  
“Oh, you're not done yet,” she blurted out, and felt her face heat up.  
  
He looked surprised for a moment, before turning mock-solemn.  
  
“Of course.”  
He was teasing her, she knew, but she liked it. He took off his foot wraps next, and it took him no longer than slipping out of a well-worn pair of shoes. They unraveled and fell around his ankles.  
  
When it came time to take off his leggings, however, he turned his back to her, acting as if by mere coincidence. Evelyn snorted, knowing it was no such thing.  
  
She was appeased, however, when he peeled off leggings and smallclothes both, and she was left with the sight of well-shaped thighs and buttocks. Sharp heat throbbed between her legs, and rubbing her knees together was doing nothing to abate it. She sighed. He heard her; there was no doubt with the way he tilted his head in the direction of the sound.  
  
He  _stalked_  towards the bed, there was no other way to describe it, and she was transfixed by the sight of him, hard and predatory.  
  
“Fen'Harel,” she said. It seemed the right name in that moment, the true one when he was stripped down and ready to jump her, and he most likely agreed, because she heard him growl as he fell upon her.  
  
She spread her legs, wanting to feel him sink into her with a single stroke just as smoothly as he moved, but he didn't. He pinned her hips down, holding her in place, and he bit down at the juncture of her neck and shoulder.  
  
Her hands scrabbled at his back, wanting him closer, harder against her.  
  
“There's no need to rush,” he said, and settled his weight over her carefully, pressing her into the soft surface of the bed.  
  
“But maybe I  _want_  to,” she replied mulishly.  
  
He gave a put-upon sigh, and nuzzled the underside of her jaw. He trailed a hand over the curve of her hip, and she felt the stir as his magic inside her reacted to him. This wasn't the pleasant warmth from before, loosening the knots of tension in her body with every pass of his hand—it was something more intent, tugging at the need in her body, unmistakeably arousing.  
  
Her nails dug into his back and she writhed against him.  
  
“Shh,” he breathed into the crook of her neck, “I have you,  _vhenan_. I have you.”  
  
Evelyn stilled. She shut her eyes tightly, her breathing evening out, fingers rubbing apologetic circles over the indents her nails left in his skin. She nodded slowly.  
  
“I know,” she said.  
  
He rose, kneeling up in between her legs, and her eyes fluttered open. He looked beautiful in the firelight, like a pale statue cast in swathes of orange and flickering shadows. They looked at each other, eyes locked for a long time, completely still but for the rise and fall of their chests.  
  
Evelyn was the first to move again, breaking off eye contact to pull her shift off. She threw it to the side and laid back on the bed, splayed and bare to him as she'd never been before anyone her entire life.

He did not look away from her face, but his hand moved, mapping the contours of her body, waking up every drop of magic under her skin. It flared inside her, not like the Anchor, but deeper, painless and aching at the same time.  
  
Up her side, across the dip of her waist, stalling over her breast to tease a pert nipple, and then he trailed fingers down her torso against, stopping just under her navel.   
  
“Tell me what you want,” he said, intense and commanding.  
  
Evelyn hissed a breath, spilling over with too many demands to make just one.  
  
“I want you, Fen'Harel,” she replied.  
  
He thrust into her, burying himself to the hilt in a single stroke for how wet she was. Evelyn moaned, the sound so obscenely loud that she pressed a hand over her mouth in shock. He pulled it away from her mouth.  
  
“None of that,” he said. “I  _will_  hear you.”  
  
There was a certain finality in his voice, allowing no discussion, and Evelyn stared at him wide-eyed for a moment, surprised there was something new he could do to arouse her yet further.  
  
He settled over her, kissed her mouth once and hard, and then began to move. She canted her hips, meeting him on every thrust, trying to pull him deeper each time. Everything became meaningless beyond the feeling of him buried inside, beyond the pressure building—magic or heat or arousal, bleeding together until it all became the same, until it was all  _him_ , filling her in every way possible, and a few new ones he must have invented just for her.   
  
When the first orgasm came, it took her by surprise. It was not a peak so much as an overflow, dragged out impossibly long, smeared across minutes like sunlight over a wall, bright and warm. He did not change his pace, instead keeping to the same measures rhythm, working her body through the simmering pleasure.   
  
She didn't know it could be like this, like anything other than the quick, jagged orgasms made sharp by the fear of discovery. She called his name, not knowing what to say, how to thank him, how to explain. He understood. Leaning his forehead against hers, he regarded her with such affection that it made her heart hurt.  
  
He slipped a hand between them. She hissed as he rubbed her, pleasure beginning to build again.  
  
“Don't try to quiet yourself,” he said. “You will need to save your energy for other things tonight.”  
  
She whimpered, wanting everything he was willing to give her.

* * *

If Evelyn would remember one thing, it was how impressively thorough Solas was in bed that night. She wondered how long he'd been thinking about it, about all the ways in which he'd take her, all the ways in which he'd use his mouth and cock, because it seemed all his ideas had been considered well in advance.   
  
He guided her with firm hands and softly-spoken commands, and she made her own demands with pitched whines and clenching grip; they met each other somewhere in the middle, a hungry place where everything was heat and desperate need.   
  
He could be slow, measured, focused on her with a scouring intensity, but as the night went on, more and more, his breathing became as ragged as hers, his thrusts short and harried. She found the exact way of speaking his name to make him unravel, and he found just how long he could keep her on the precipice before she begged. He wrenched as many brutal orgasms from her body as he teased sweet, slow ones, and she made him come howling with her teeth against his neck.  
  
It was near morning when they finally tired, lying together in bed and talking in low voices, exchanging distracted kisses, and even then, as one point, he grasped her leg, hooking it over his hip and burying himself into her again. It was as casual as a touch of hands, and his pace was leisurely, unconcerned as he continued speaking on whatever idle topic they'd been discussing. Evelyn wasn't sure she had anything left to give, but that didn't seem the point; mostly he did not even bother to move, and feeling him inside her was more strangely comforting than arousing.  
  
So she listened to him tell her of spirits and lost wonders, smoothing a hand over the furrows she'd scratched into his skin. She'd tried to apologize for how much she bit and scratched during sex—something which had never been evident to her before, when all her partners had been at least partially clothed—but he wouldn't have it. Instead he hissed into her ear 'do not hold yourself back', and then she'd come hard and left a bite mark on his shoulder. He healed the soreness of her body after they spent themselves, but he left the marks on his own skin. It made Evelyn's heart flutter with a possessive pride she hadn't known herself capable of.  
  
She knew he'd leave, eventually. There was something calling him, a duty going deeper than love. But if she could have him like this every time he returned, she thought, maybe... it would make up for lost time. Even if it was not as much time on her part as on his.  
  
His thoughts must have run along the same lines, as he carded fingers through her hair. As dawn broke over the mountains, turning milky gray light to gold, he kissed her brow and made his request again.  
  
“I ask only that you learn the spell,” he said, “whether you use it or not is something to consider on your own.”  
  
He took her hand and told her how to weave it, how to pull on his magic inside her—ages, he promised her. Time enough for him to return to her again and again. More nights together, more days.  
  
She wasn't sure if she could do that, if claiming immortality was as easy for her as he imagined it to be. But she memorized the spell, she repeated back all the steps until she had them all committed to memory. She put it away for  _one day_ , for  _maybe_.  
  
He kissed her fingers, grateful for something she did not even promise.  
  
But right then, all of this was enough, for both of them.


End file.
